June 12, 2025 • 31 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Very Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Wouldn't it be nice if we could go back back
to when music felt like a dream, back to when
Brian Wilson first tuned his soul to the sound of
the sea. If Brian Wilson didn't just write songs, he
(01:14):
built cathedrals out of sound. He took a surfboard, a heartbreak,
and a piano and made something holy.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Fizo Godmzys's young man.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
He heard things the rest of us just missed, not
just notes, emotions. He turned loneliness into harmony, turned fear
into falsetto, turned childhood pain into beauty.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
I love and the way the sunlight plays a partner.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
While the world chase hits. Brian Wilson chased truth and
quietly changed the course of music far beyond his own band.
He showed us that pop could be art, that noise
could be poetry. He didn't follow the formula, he rewrote it,
(02:34):
and through all the chaos in his mind, he gave
our chaos a melody. We thought he was writing about California,
but really he was writing about us, our longing, our innocence,
our need to believe in something beautiful. Brian Wilson wasn't
(03:00):
just a beach boy. He was the ocean, and now
he's gone back to it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I may not always love you, but line is there
are stas love you.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
You never need to Dad, I'll thank you so shit.
Buddy good Oden knows what I be with that you.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Live anything this Eddie Martini boughts the moment, nice watch.
He's really up to his production since then. It is
not an exaggeration to say Brian Wilson eighty two, the
real heart and soul of the Beach Boys, has passed.
(03:59):
It is not an exaggeration to say that Brian Wilson
is the Mozart or Beethoven of the twentieth century. Paul McCartney,
John Lennon, Brian Wilson. These are the men who have
(04:21):
affected in the most tectonic way world music as we
know it for the popular culture. And it is an incredible,
incredible loss to humanity his passing. You know, I find
it interesting. I posted yesterday that Brian Wilson had passed,
(04:45):
and the only thing a number of people could think
to comment was, here's real massed up and hey you okay, well, yeah,
I suppose that's true, but it's really not the point
of it all. I don't know why people do that.
I don't know if it's a well, he might have
been great, but at least I'm not crazy. I never
(05:06):
understand that yet. Yes, he struggled with severe depression, but
we're all going to be gone, sooner or later. We're
all going to be gone, And the question is what
do you leave behind? Because one hundred years from now,
nobody will remember you were bat blank crazy. They just won't.
(05:26):
They will remember what did you do with you a
great father or mother? Did you create some great art
and hand it off to the universe and it'll be
remembered one hundred years. Hence, that is what is noteworthy.
That's what we should celebrate, not something he didn't choose.
Having been tormented by depression, which, by the way, many
(05:51):
people are, and being eighty two. In the early to
mid sixties, when he was at his prime and really
fell under the throes of it, there were not the resources,
both in people and drugs that there are today. There
are a number of people who are functioning with depression
(06:12):
that could not have at that time. In any case,
we had a segment last night our second segment, so
we call that fifty two our second segment of the
five o'clock hour. Most of you know, we do this
morning show and then we do an evening show from
five to seven, and when the astros are not on,
(06:32):
there's a replay from seven to nine, which oddly enough,
absolutely kills in the ratings, which we find quite funny
because we've already been on five hours a day, which
is more than anybody in the country, and they replayed
two more hours, which we love because we love us
and Michael Berry show from seven to nine and it
dominates the time slot, so that's pretty cool. But anyway,
(06:55):
we had a segment last night related to the movie
rain Man, and I won't redo this segment now because
we're going to replay it in just a moment. Our
next segment's going to be a replay from next night,
and then we'll get back to the show live. But
it was an interesting moment a discovery I had made
yesterday about rain Man, and the reason was I went
(07:20):
looking into Brian Wilson's history and the mental health treatment
he had received and trying to get some sense of
it all, and I had landed on rain Man and
how Rainman had addressed folks on the spectrum, which I
guess I should be careful. I'm gonna ended up going
(07:41):
back into the whole segment I did last night. We
don't want to do that. Let me just say this.
When I started in radio twenty years ago, I had
a program director I'd even care for it, and he
used to say, don't ever judge how the show goes
by the reaction of the audience, because even Dion Warwick
in the Psychic Hotline gets a lot of phone calls,
doesn't make it good radio. And I've come to find
(08:03):
that that's not true. Our listeners are pretty honest. You
folks are pretty honest. And we had such an outpouring
of emails about last night's show that we're doing something
we almost never do, and that is in the next segment,
we're replaying last night's show and then we'll get back
to it. Flavor Long and I met Michael Berry's Chocta free.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Out.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
This intro song and our opening segment of the show
last night got more email responses of praise than I
have received in years. So we are going to replay
that segment right now, just as it was.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
What we've got here is milk cage.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Most of the people hovering that campaign were not particularly
knowledgeable about the past and didn't you know, may may
not have even known that. You know, America firsters pac
Madison Square Garden in nineteen thirty nine and a pro
Nazi Germany rally.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
You said over the weekend, referring to it, there's a
direct parallel to a big rally that happened.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
In the mid nineteen thirties, that Medicine Square Garden.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
So I know what I saw, and I'll just leave
it at that. Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?
Speaker 6 (09:28):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I do, Yes, I do.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
The races, sex, is homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic, you name it.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Only garbage I see floating down there as his supporters.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
His demonization is seen as unconstable, and it's not America.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I
call the basket of deplora win.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Look at the fee with.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
Look at the wind away with bomus come the ball.
Speaker 8 (10:05):
You know that's a little bit old, that chart, that
charts a couple of months old. And if you want
to really see something that said, take a look at
what happened.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
The reasoning man. We believe the same blood, we share
(10:51):
the same home, and we salute the same great American flag.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation
under God.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So Jews and Muslims and.
Speaker 8 (11:07):
Catholics and Evangelicals and Mormons, and they're all joining our
corps and large numbers, larger than anyone has ever seen
in this country before, larger than they've ever seen in
any country. And the Republican Party has really become the
Party of inclusion, and that's something very nice about that.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Can we just can we just take a moment. I'm
fifty four. If you are my age. Gn R was
our Beatles. I don't need to hear it from you
that grew up with the Beatles. I'm just telling you.
GNR was ubiquitous. They were everywhere all the time. You
(12:02):
listened to them on the radio. You it was really
the only place you could get music back then. Somebody
maybe had a cassette tape. If you were in a
public place, if there was a festival, if there was
a sporting event. Man, it was GNR actual roads. I
mean it was. They were so darn big it is
hard to imagine. I mean, I don't know who's that
(12:24):
big today because the eighties had brought in this new
wave which was just basically a shaving the edges off
of disco and calling it pop, but it was really disco.
You can go back and look at it mathematically, the
(12:44):
way the music is structured, so many the glam version
of it. Anyway, we didn't. We're going to talk about
terrorism in America today, which is what's going on across
the country, who's funding it, how it should be dealt with,
why it matters. But first I want to take you
back to nineteen eighty eight because we're also in about
(13:09):
that era in that mode. In nineteen eighty eight, the
largest grossing film of the year was rain Man. Follow
Me Here for a Moment. Rainman was nominated for eight
awards at the sixty first Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Director,
Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman, Best Original screenpay Play. I
(13:33):
am not a Tom Cruise fan, not at all. But
I think he is so good in Tropic Thunder, in
a role that's outside the norm for him, which is
why I like it, and it's awesome, And I think
he is so good in rain Man. He's got you
so twisted off, bent out of shape, aggravated by his
(13:54):
character in rain Man that you almost wonder if they
starved him of sleeping food for days to get him
that edgy to play that role. The movie is so
incredibly good, it's just wonderful. It's such a frame of reference.
You know, if Judge Watner's name is mentioned, or if
(14:16):
somebody is just too locked in on, you know, doing
something at a certain time and refuses to be the
character that was Dustin Hoffman in that film, it really
moves the conversation forward because it gives you a frame
of reference to talk about certain obsessive, compulsive behaviors. That
(14:37):
was before we started referring to people, including ourselves, as
somewhere on the spectrum, which I think most people are
somewhere on the spectrum, including and especially high performing individuals.
Elon Musk is way out there on the spectrum. But
then again, you're not a normal guy if you if
(15:00):
you build Tesla and SpaceX and start Link and the
Boring Company and everything that he's done, and you want
to father a bunch of kids to to you know,
further the race or the species or whatever else. But
thank God for him, We need people like that, they move.
They moved the ball forward anyway. Dustin Hoffman's character was
(15:20):
was really an opportunity for us to kind of to
put our arms around and begin to grasp this concept
of not even retardation because we had dealt with that,
this concept of people that are somewhere on the spectrum
and yet still able to function. But the reason I
(15:41):
brought this up is there is a scene in the
movie where the two of them are in the phone booth.
Remember Tom Cruise has basically kidnapped him, and they call
back to the doctor. Remember that, and Dustin Hoffman farts.
This is just right after the fart scene in the
phone booth.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Oh, Charlie battant on home, aren't did you fart? Aren't?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Did you?
Speaker 4 (16:07):
How can you stay in that? My own mind? How
can you stand there now?
Speaker 1 (16:11):
The reason I told you that is I just learned
today that Dustin Hoffman did fark and it wasn't in
the script and they improvised that. How awesome is that?
Don't worry, We'll talk about the riots. I just want
to start with that because I think it's a great story.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
The Michael Berry Show, Michael Berry Show, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Think about this. I saw a mean said California in
nineteen sixty five. A bunch of young folks and they
were all white, standing around a white Mustang convertible. Pretty girls,
blonde hair. The guys all look like models, you know
(16:55):
who the guys looked like. What was the guys? Was
it James Spader that always played the bad guy in
the eighties. They all looked like him, full had of
blonde hair. I mean, I know he's bald now. But
and they're all at the beach and they're all dressed,
and I don't know what you wore back then. Oh,
I don't know if there was a brand. Op op
was what I was growing up. Ocean Pacific And you know,
(17:16):
they're frolicking in the sand around the car and they're happy.
And Brian Wilson was writing the soundtrack to that life.
The beach boys, the beach, the California beach, soaking in
the rays, the girls, the boys frolicking having fun, whimsical.
That was California in nineteen sixty five. When pet Sounds hit.
(17:41):
I mean, that was it, man, that was the feel.
That was it. Fast forward sixty years, how appropriate now
California is some mixed bag of illegal alien Mexicans, Muslim terrorists,
complete trash from around the world, the worst of the worst,
(18:03):
the crap, whole country sending US dumping on us, their terrorists,
child traffickers, ex cons. This mari Elis boat lift all
over again. That's what California has become. That's what it
was allowed to become. They didn't invade violently. They were
welcomed by guilt ridden white people who were ashamed at
(18:24):
how well they were living. Don't worry, They're not the
only ones. That's happening in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England's lost
to the Caliphate. Chance McLain meanwhile, trying to outdo ramon Roman.
I hope you know this was an attempt out do you.
This was a This was a shot at your kingdom.
I just your dingdom. This was a shot at your
Dingdom's what it was. Chance McLain writes, quote my whole life.
(18:48):
This was after Brian Wilson died. We all had a
group cry my whole life. The Beach Boys, which means
Brian Wilson have been a dominant inspiration for the music
I love and the music I've made. It's always been
to Beach Boys. The Beatles, Hank Junior, and the Cars.
As the years and decades passed, these were joined by
various bands Erasure but Shut Up, Ramon, I Love Eraser,
(19:10):
bon Jovi, and more recently My Chemical Romance, Muse and
the Killers. Some of these have come and gone, but
that Core four has never changed. The Beach Boys, the Beatles,
Hank Jr. And the Cars. That feels weird putting the
cars in that category, doesn't it? Okay? I guess if
you don't want any credibility, throw the cars in there.
(19:32):
And the first of the core four is Brian Wilson.
The sound he made was so different and distinct yet
fit with his contemporaries. And at the root is how
he used harmony so brilliantly. He used layering masterfully. Oh
that's funny, because I talked about layering yesterday. Just don't
quote me in okay, I want to come up with
that concept who He would bring in weird instruments. His
(19:54):
songs would take wild journeys into unexpected directions. He was
daring but not inaccessible. He and his co writers would
write seemingly playful lyrics that had depth under the surface,
or they might write something that would seem pretentious if
anyone else wrote it, but then he wrote it. But
when he wrote it, we bought it. His life was imperfect.
(20:14):
From when I'm trying to bungle some of his words,
so his doesn't end up better than yours. I don't
want to outshine you. He had all the struggles, but man,
could that dude make music? Rest in peace, sincerely, I
hope that in death this genius found the piece that
eluded him for over eighty years. Often the turmoil in
our lives is what enables us to make great art.
I mean us humans. If that's true. I hate that
(20:36):
he had to suffer, But holy hell, am I grateful
for the music, as are millions upon millions of people.
His influence as a songwriter cannot be overstated. While inducting
Brian Wilson into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Sir Paul
McCartney told those in attendance that Brian Wilson's music would
often make him cry.
Speaker 9 (20:56):
He wrote some music. When I played it, it made
me cry, and I don't quite know why. It wasn't
necessarily the words of the music. There's just something so
deep in it that there's only certain pieces of music
can do this to me and just reach it right
down in me. And I think it's a sign of
(21:18):
great genius to be able to do that with a
bunch of words and a bunch of notes.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
And this man, he deserves to be in the Hall
of Fame, that's sure.
Speaker 9 (21:28):
So thank you, sir for everything you've done for me,
for making me cry, for having that thing you can
do with your music. You just put those notes, those
harmonies together, stick a couple of words over the top
of it, and you've got me.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Any day, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Brian Wilson.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
That was his induction into what the rock and roll
Hall of Fame. That's right. Yeah, so you've got le
chic and Brian Wilson. Yeah really it really.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
So.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Our group is heavy. If we had slack, that's would
be on slack, But we don't do slack. That's a
side channel site. I don't know if people still use slack.
But a friend of mine a few years ago, Russell Linley,
he had a nationwide ad agency called ad Results, and
they were the biggest and the best at what they did,
and from Rush to Hannity to back, I don't want
(22:27):
to put myself in that category, but we were a
part of their stable. When a national company wanted live endorsements,
not just advertisement, live endorsements, they would go to them
and say, who would be a good partner for this product?
And for about five years I didn't speak for them
because the spots had to read a script and I
don't read scripts. If I don't. If I like your
if I like your product, you don't have to tell
me what hours Connie Connie Stagner is open, right, You
(22:49):
don't need to tell me that. You don't need to
tell me what hours us coin is open or what
sale they're having for Memorial Day, because nothing honors dead
soldiers quite like twenty five percent off, you know. Tell
me that they don't do that sort of stuff. It's
a long term play. It's a brand partnership. It's a
they share our values kind of deal. But Russell is
(23:11):
a genius, and they sold their company for a lot
of money because he's a genius. He and Marshall Williams
his partner, just a business partner, none just but just
business partner. They're actually both oddly married to insanely gorgeous women.
So they could be gay because gay guys always married
just these over the top gorgeous women. So yeah, you know,
(23:33):
come to think of it, yeah, they'd make a nice
gay couple. Yeah, and they make a lot of money.
They're really smart and really high energy. But anyway, so
Russell told me years ago, he was like, I tell
you what, I'll send it to you on Slack. And
I said, what is slack? He said, what's a side channel? Well,
I don't know what the primary channel is. What's a
side channel? I feel like my grandmother all over again.
And he said, oh, it's slack. You know, you got
(23:54):
it up on your screen and while you're working, people
in the office they can send you, you know, comments
on whoa man. I got too many things coming at
me already. I think I'm gonna go ahead and pull
back on Slack. No slack for me, no man, listen,
you got your people on slack. And then and Russell
is he's not on cocaine. But he's the guy that
if you found out he was, he's not. He's actually
(24:17):
stone close over. He doesn't do anything. He's a what
do you call it, straight edge like ad uh? But
he said, yeah, I mean, you know, you can just
shoot somebody a message. I got email. I don't. I
don't need another place to check messages. I don't want
to do that. But if we had slacked, that's where
this is going on, was going by email. And everybody's
making fun of Ramone for being the first one for
(24:39):
his Brian Wilson tribute because I told everybody, you know,
let's pay proper tribute to Brian Wilson, and Darryl Kunda said,
Ramone's got that quote first kid to turn in their
test vibe. Maybe fid he's getting some kickback money from
the cartel to Michael Berry show that, or he's got
the brains of the new Stephen Page, who I would
(25:05):
argue was the heart and soul of Baron negu Lady's
been only really one half the front name duo.
Speaker 7 (25:12):
I try to turn that up sane heal lovest joy
A Bland Buggatsarland Castle film son.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Of He was a York University in Toronto, Miami. The
year was nineteen ninety and he was really connected to
Brian Wilson, and not just the early sixties Brian Wilson,
but ran Wilson through the seventies when most people had
(25:47):
forgotten him. The band had at his direction at his
request kind of moved on. The Beach Boys had gone
on tour multiple times. He could not join them because
he was struggling with mental health problems so badly. And
at one point he had he was looking for inspiration
(26:08):
of the beach but in his home, so he had
loads of sand brought into his living room and dumped
in his living room, and he would walk from his bed,
which he struggled to get out of, which anybody who
knows anything about depression, people that really struggle with depression,
can have can can find it impossible to get out
(26:30):
of bed. Now that task alone. I've read about people
other than going to the restroom, not getting out of
the bed and not getting out of their bedroom for
months on end. Some of them very successful, some of
them are very famous for that matter. And Stephen Page
was connecting with this struggle for sanity, for stability, and
(26:57):
it meant something to him that Brian Wilson had all
so struggled in this way. So he was living in
his parents' basement, literally living in his parents' basement in Toronto,
and he had the band which they had named on
the when they're coming up with names, they thought it
would be cool when they were when they were in town,
(27:18):
the sign would say coming tonight bare Naked Ladies or
bare Naked Ladies Tonight, which is where that name came from.
So Stephen Page was only nineteen struggling with his own
mental health issues and begins a deep dive into Brian
Wilson and what Brian Wilson was going through. And he
(27:39):
wanted people who wanted other people to find solace in
the Brian Wilson story. And this is some would argue
the greatest American songwriter of all time, certainly one of
the greatest American songwriters of all time, one of, if
not the most influential American songwriter in pop culture. You know,
sixty five years later that's still true. And so he
(28:00):
wrote that tribute to him, and he lived in fear
how Brian Wilson would take it. Would he think he
was taunting him, or making fun of him, or insulting him.
And Brian Wilson was apparently moved to tears and came
to their concert and they brought him up on stage.
So I want you to imagine this moment gives me
(28:20):
chose to think about it. If you've written a tribute
to your favorite artist, and you've attempted very delicately, because
it's not something you do easily in the middle of
a hit song. You've attempted to address the difficulty of
mental health that he suffered from, that you yourself have
(28:41):
suffered from, without being over the top or kitschy or saccer,
and you want to bring attention to this. And he
comes up on stage with you and sings that song.
I don't know how you talk moment in your life.
I don't know how you put that. I don't know
(29:02):
where in your memory palace you put that moment, because
that ninety nine times out of one hundred, that doesn't
turn out that way. And he's hurt, insulted, angry, litigious,
who knows? And here is this moment that you everything
you wanted tribute to Brian Wilson and to try Brian
(29:22):
Wilson's struggle all brought to bear on the stage and
Brian Wilson joins in because he gets the spirit of
what you're doing. Woo boy, that's strong right there. I mean,
that is uh, that's deep, that is very very deep.
We went looking for a mental health partner several years ago.
(29:47):
I wanted somebody, because I kept getting messages from listeners
asking for where they could get help mental health help
often for them, probably more often because people aren't People
are a little uncomfortable to ask for themselves. But when
it comes to your teenager, there all hands on deck.
Hey guys, they'll blow a siren. Can somebody help me?
(30:11):
Because with mental health, with teenagers particularly, you worry about suicide.
And so I kept getting this request, and so I
would ask around and I couldn't find anybody, and so
Robert Reese. I put Robert rees one of our top
sellers on the issue of finding someone, and I put
the word out and we got emails, and he would
(30:32):
go and meet with them and say, you know, we
expect you to do this, this, and this, and we
expect to get great results. We expect to get great
feedback from our listeners when we do them. It's a
husband wife team and it's a full practice. I don't know,
they probably have twenty five thirty people there now.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
But.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
There were practices of just one person, and I'm sure
they were all very good, but they couldn't handle the
amount of referrals we were going to be sending. And
we have been very very happy with our partnership with
Family Psychiatry of the Woodlands. But whether you use them
or someone else, I have changed my opinion in fifty
four years. If you struggle with mental health, that doesn't
(31:10):
mean you should be the county judge because you may
not be set up to do that, but it does
mean that you should get help. That is a real thing.
It's a real thing to have mental health issues. And
it's a real thing to be debilitated and not be
able to get out of bed, and it's a real
thing to not be able to function as a human being.
And you didn't choose that, and you're not weak. It's
(31:31):
a sickness. It's an illness, and like every other illness,
it deserves to be treated
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Very Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Wouldn't it be nice if we could go back back
to when music felt like a dream, back to when
Brian Wilson first tuned his soul to the sound of
the sea. If Brian Wilson didn't just write songs, he
(01:14):
built cathedrals out of sound. He took a surfboard, a heartbreak,
and a piano and made something holy.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Fizo Godmzys's young man.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
He heard things the rest of us just missed, not
just notes, emotions. He turned loneliness into harmony, turned fear
into falsetto, turned childhood pain into beauty.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
I love and the way the sunlight plays a partner.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
While the world chase hits. Brian Wilson chased truth and
quietly changed the course of music far beyond his own band.
He showed us that pop could be art, that noise
could be poetry. He didn't follow the formula, he rewrote it,
(02:34):
and through all the chaos in his mind, he gave
our chaos a melody. We thought he was writing about California,
but really he was writing about us, our longing, our innocence,
our need to believe in something beautiful. Brian Wilson wasn't
(03:00):
just a beach boy. He was the ocean, and now
he's gone back to it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I may not always love you, but line is there
are stas love you.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
You never need to Dad, I'll thank you so shit.
Buddy good Oden knows what I be with that you.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Live anything this Eddie Martini boughts the moment, nice watch.
He's really up to his production since then. It is
not an exaggeration to say Brian Wilson eighty two, the
real heart and soul of the Beach Boys, has passed.
(03:59):
It is not an exaggeration to say that Brian Wilson
is the Mozart or Beethoven of the twentieth century. Paul McCartney,
John Lennon, Brian Wilson. These are the men who have
(04:21):
affected in the most tectonic way world music as we
know it for the popular culture. And it is an incredible,
incredible loss to humanity his passing. You know, I find
it interesting. I posted yesterday that Brian Wilson had passed,
(04:45):
and the only thing a number of people could think
to comment was, here's real massed up and hey you okay, well, yeah,
I suppose that's true, but it's really not the point
of it all. I don't know why people do that.
I don't know if it's a well, he might have
been great, but at least I'm not crazy. I never
(05:06):
understand that yet. Yes, he struggled with severe depression, but
we're all going to be gone, sooner or later. We're
all going to be gone, And the question is what
do you leave behind? Because one hundred years from now,
nobody will remember you were bat blank crazy. They just won't.
(05:26):
They will remember what did you do with you a
great father or mother? Did you create some great art
and hand it off to the universe and it'll be
remembered one hundred years. Hence, that is what is noteworthy.
That's what we should celebrate, not something he didn't choose.
Having been tormented by depression, which, by the way, many
(05:51):
people are, and being eighty two. In the early to
mid sixties, when he was at his prime and really
fell under the throes of it, there were not the resources,
both in people and drugs that there are today. There
are a number of people who are functioning with depression
(06:12):
that could not have at that time. In any case,
we had a segment last night our second segment, so
we call that fifty two our second segment of the
five o'clock hour. Most of you know, we do this
morning show and then we do an evening show from
five to seven, and when the astros are not on,
(06:32):
there's a replay from seven to nine, which oddly enough,
absolutely kills in the ratings, which we find quite funny
because we've already been on five hours a day, which
is more than anybody in the country, and they replayed
two more hours, which we love because we love us
and Michael Berry show from seven to nine and it
dominates the time slot, so that's pretty cool. But anyway,
(06:55):
we had a segment last night related to the movie
rain Man, and I won't redo this segment now because
we're going to replay it in just a moment. Our
next segment's going to be a replay from next night,
and then we'll get back to the show live. But
it was an interesting moment a discovery I had made
yesterday about rain Man, and the reason was I went
(07:20):
looking into Brian Wilson's history and the mental health treatment
he had received and trying to get some sense of
it all, and I had landed on rain Man and
how Rainman had addressed folks on the spectrum, which I
guess I should be careful. I'm gonna ended up going
(07:41):
back into the whole segment I did last night. We
don't want to do that. Let me just say this.
When I started in radio twenty years ago, I had
a program director I'd even care for it, and he
used to say, don't ever judge how the show goes
by the reaction of the audience, because even Dion Warwick
in the Psychic Hotline gets a lot of phone calls,
doesn't make it good radio. And I've come to find
(08:03):
that that's not true. Our listeners are pretty honest. You
folks are pretty honest. And we had such an outpouring
of emails about last night's show that we're doing something
we almost never do, and that is in the next segment,
we're replaying last night's show and then we'll get back
to it. Flavor Long and I met Michael Berry's Chocta free.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Out.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
This intro song and our opening segment of the show
last night got more email responses of praise than I
have received in years. So we are going to replay
that segment right now, just as it was.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
What we've got here is milk cage.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Most of the people hovering that campaign were not particularly
knowledgeable about the past and didn't you know, may may
not have even known that. You know, America firsters pac
Madison Square Garden in nineteen thirty nine and a pro
Nazi Germany rally.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
You said over the weekend, referring to it, there's a
direct parallel to a big rally that happened.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
In the mid nineteen thirties, that Medicine Square Garden.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
So I know what I saw, and I'll just leave
it at that. Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?
Speaker 6 (09:28):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I do, Yes, I do.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
The races, sex, is homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic, you name it.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Only garbage I see floating down there as his supporters.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
His demonization is seen as unconstable, and it's not America.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I
call the basket of deplora win.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Look at the fee with.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
Look at the wind away with bomus come the ball.
Speaker 8 (10:05):
You know that's a little bit old, that chart, that
charts a couple of months old. And if you want
to really see something that said, take a look at
what happened.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
The reasoning man. We believe the same blood, we share
(10:51):
the same home, and we salute the same great American flag.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation
under God.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So Jews and Muslims and.
Speaker 8 (11:07):
Catholics and Evangelicals and Mormons, and they're all joining our
corps and large numbers, larger than anyone has ever seen
in this country before, larger than they've ever seen in
any country. And the Republican Party has really become the
Party of inclusion, and that's something very nice about that.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Can we just can we just take a moment. I'm
fifty four. If you are my age. Gn R was
our Beatles. I don't need to hear it from you
that grew up with the Beatles. I'm just telling you.
GNR was ubiquitous. They were everywhere all the time. You
(12:02):
listened to them on the radio. You it was really
the only place you could get music back then. Somebody
maybe had a cassette tape. If you were in a
public place, if there was a festival, if there was
a sporting event. Man, it was GNR actual roads. I
mean it was. They were so darn big it is
hard to imagine. I mean, I don't know who's that
(12:24):
big today because the eighties had brought in this new
wave which was just basically a shaving the edges off
of disco and calling it pop, but it was really disco.
You can go back and look at it mathematically, the
(12:44):
way the music is structured, so many the glam version
of it. Anyway, we didn't. We're going to talk about
terrorism in America today, which is what's going on across
the country, who's funding it, how it should be dealt with,
why it matters. But first I want to take you
back to nineteen eighty eight because we're also in about
(13:09):
that era in that mode. In nineteen eighty eight, the
largest grossing film of the year was rain Man. Follow
Me Here for a Moment. Rainman was nominated for eight
awards at the sixty first Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Director,
Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman, Best Original screenpay Play. I
(13:33):
am not a Tom Cruise fan, not at all. But
I think he is so good in Tropic Thunder, in
a role that's outside the norm for him, which is
why I like it, and it's awesome, And I think
he is so good in rain Man. He's got you
so twisted off, bent out of shape, aggravated by his
(13:54):
character in rain Man that you almost wonder if they
starved him of sleeping food for days to get him
that edgy to play that role. The movie is so
incredibly good, it's just wonderful. It's such a frame of reference.
You know, if Judge Watner's name is mentioned, or if
(14:16):
somebody is just too locked in on, you know, doing
something at a certain time and refuses to be the
character that was Dustin Hoffman in that film, it really
moves the conversation forward because it gives you a frame
of reference to talk about certain obsessive, compulsive behaviors. That
(14:37):
was before we started referring to people, including ourselves, as
somewhere on the spectrum, which I think most people are
somewhere on the spectrum, including and especially high performing individuals.
Elon Musk is way out there on the spectrum. But
then again, you're not a normal guy if you if
(15:00):
you build Tesla and SpaceX and start Link and the
Boring Company and everything that he's done, and you want
to father a bunch of kids to to you know,
further the race or the species or whatever else. But
thank God for him, We need people like that, they move.
They moved the ball forward anyway. Dustin Hoffman's character was
(15:20):
was really an opportunity for us to kind of to
put our arms around and begin to grasp this concept
of not even retardation because we had dealt with that,
this concept of people that are somewhere on the spectrum
and yet still able to function. But the reason I
(15:41):
brought this up is there is a scene in the
movie where the two of them are in the phone booth.
Remember Tom Cruise has basically kidnapped him, and they call
back to the doctor. Remember that, and Dustin Hoffman farts.
This is just right after the fart scene in the
phone booth.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Oh, Charlie battant on home, aren't did you fart? Aren't?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Did you?
Speaker 4 (16:07):
How can you stay in that? My own mind? How
can you stand there now?
Speaker 1 (16:11):
The reason I told you that is I just learned
today that Dustin Hoffman did fark and it wasn't in
the script and they improvised that. How awesome is that?
Don't worry, We'll talk about the riots. I just want
to start with that because I think it's a great story.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
The Michael Berry Show, Michael Berry Show, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Think about this. I saw a mean said California in
nineteen sixty five. A bunch of young folks and they
were all white, standing around a white Mustang convertible. Pretty girls,
blonde hair. The guys all look like models, you know
(16:55):
who the guys looked like. What was the guys? Was
it James Spader that always played the bad guy in
the eighties. They all looked like him, full had of
blonde hair. I mean, I know he's bald now. But
and they're all at the beach and they're all dressed,
and I don't know what you wore back then. Oh,
I don't know if there was a brand. Op op
was what I was growing up. Ocean Pacific And you know,
(17:16):
they're frolicking in the sand around the car and they're happy.
And Brian Wilson was writing the soundtrack to that life.
The beach boys, the beach, the California beach, soaking in
the rays, the girls, the boys frolicking having fun, whimsical.
That was California in nineteen sixty five. When pet Sounds hit.
(17:41):
I mean, that was it, man, that was the feel.
That was it. Fast forward sixty years, how appropriate now
California is some mixed bag of illegal alien Mexicans, Muslim terrorists,
complete trash from around the world, the worst of the worst,
(18:03):
the crap, whole country sending US dumping on us, their terrorists,
child traffickers, ex cons. This mari Elis boat lift all
over again. That's what California has become. That's what it
was allowed to become. They didn't invade violently. They were
welcomed by guilt ridden white people who were ashamed at
(18:24):
how well they were living. Don't worry, They're not the
only ones. That's happening in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England's lost
to the Caliphate. Chance McLain meanwhile, trying to outdo ramon Roman.
I hope you know this was an attempt out do you.
This was a This was a shot at your kingdom.
I just your dingdom. This was a shot at your
Dingdom's what it was. Chance McLain writes, quote my whole life.
(18:48):
This was after Brian Wilson died. We all had a
group cry my whole life. The Beach Boys, which means
Brian Wilson have been a dominant inspiration for the music
I love and the music I've made. It's always been
to Beach Boys. The Beatles, Hank Junior, and the Cars.
As the years and decades passed, these were joined by
various bands Erasure but Shut Up, Ramon, I Love Eraser,
(19:10):
bon Jovi, and more recently My Chemical Romance, Muse and
the Killers. Some of these have come and gone, but
that Core four has never changed. The Beach Boys, the Beatles,
Hank Jr. And the Cars. That feels weird putting the
cars in that category, doesn't it? Okay? I guess if
you don't want any credibility, throw the cars in there.
(19:32):
And the first of the core four is Brian Wilson.
The sound he made was so different and distinct yet
fit with his contemporaries. And at the root is how
he used harmony so brilliantly. He used layering masterfully. Oh
that's funny, because I talked about layering yesterday. Just don't
quote me in okay, I want to come up with
that concept who He would bring in weird instruments. His
(19:54):
songs would take wild journeys into unexpected directions. He was
daring but not inaccessible. He and his co writers would
write seemingly playful lyrics that had depth under the surface,
or they might write something that would seem pretentious if
anyone else wrote it, but then he wrote it. But
when he wrote it, we bought it. His life was imperfect.
(20:14):
From when I'm trying to bungle some of his words,
so his doesn't end up better than yours. I don't
want to outshine you. He had all the struggles, but man,
could that dude make music? Rest in peace, sincerely, I
hope that in death this genius found the piece that
eluded him for over eighty years. Often the turmoil in
our lives is what enables us to make great art.
I mean us humans. If that's true. I hate that
(20:36):
he had to suffer, But holy hell, am I grateful
for the music, as are millions upon millions of people.
His influence as a songwriter cannot be overstated. While inducting
Brian Wilson into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Sir Paul
McCartney told those in attendance that Brian Wilson's music would
often make him cry.
Speaker 9 (20:56):
He wrote some music. When I played it, it made
me cry, and I don't quite know why. It wasn't
necessarily the words of the music. There's just something so
deep in it that there's only certain pieces of music
can do this to me and just reach it right
down in me. And I think it's a sign of
(21:18):
great genius to be able to do that with a
bunch of words and a bunch of notes.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
And this man, he deserves to be in the Hall
of Fame, that's sure.
Speaker 9 (21:28):
So thank you, sir for everything you've done for me,
for making me cry, for having that thing you can
do with your music. You just put those notes, those
harmonies together, stick a couple of words over the top
of it, and you've got me.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Any day, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Brian Wilson.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
That was his induction into what the rock and roll
Hall of Fame. That's right. Yeah, so you've got le
chic and Brian Wilson. Yeah really it really.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
So.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Our group is heavy. If we had slack, that's would
be on slack, But we don't do slack. That's a
side channel site. I don't know if people still use slack.
But a friend of mine a few years ago, Russell Linley,
he had a nationwide ad agency called ad Results, and
they were the biggest and the best at what they did,
and from Rush to Hannity to back, I don't want
(22:27):
to put myself in that category, but we were a
part of their stable. When a national company wanted live endorsements,
not just advertisement, live endorsements, they would go to them
and say, who would be a good partner for this product?
And for about five years I didn't speak for them
because the spots had to read a script and I
don't read scripts. If I don't. If I like your
if I like your product, you don't have to tell
me what hours Connie Connie Stagner is open, right, You
(22:49):
don't need to tell me that. You don't need to
tell me what hours us coin is open or what
sale they're having for Memorial Day, because nothing honors dead
soldiers quite like twenty five percent off, you know. Tell
me that they don't do that sort of stuff. It's
a long term play. It's a brand partnership. It's a
they share our values kind of deal. But Russell is
(23:11):
a genius, and they sold their company for a lot
of money because he's a genius. He and Marshall Williams
his partner, just a business partner, none just but just
business partner. They're actually both oddly married to insanely gorgeous women.
So they could be gay because gay guys always married
just these over the top gorgeous women. So yeah, you know,
(23:33):
come to think of it, yeah, they'd make a nice
gay couple. Yeah, and they make a lot of money.
They're really smart and really high energy. But anyway, so
Russell told me years ago, he was like, I tell
you what, I'll send it to you on Slack. And
I said, what is slack? He said, what's a side channel? Well,
I don't know what the primary channel is. What's a
side channel? I feel like my grandmother all over again.
And he said, oh, it's slack. You know, you got
(23:54):
it up on your screen and while you're working, people
in the office they can send you, you know, comments
on whoa man. I got too many things coming at
me already. I think I'm gonna go ahead and pull
back on Slack. No slack for me, no man, listen,
you got your people on slack. And then and Russell
is he's not on cocaine. But he's the guy that
if you found out he was, he's not. He's actually
(24:17):
stone close over. He doesn't do anything. He's a what
do you call it, straight edge like ad uh? But
he said, yeah, I mean, you know, you can just
shoot somebody a message. I got email. I don't. I
don't need another place to check messages. I don't want
to do that. But if we had slacked, that's where
this is going on, was going by email. And everybody's
making fun of Ramone for being the first one for
(24:39):
his Brian Wilson tribute because I told everybody, you know,
let's pay proper tribute to Brian Wilson, and Darryl Kunda said,
Ramone's got that quote first kid to turn in their
test vibe. Maybe fid he's getting some kickback money from
the cartel to Michael Berry show that, or he's got
the brains of the new Stephen Page, who I would
(25:05):
argue was the heart and soul of Baron negu Lady's
been only really one half the front name duo.
Speaker 7 (25:12):
I try to turn that up sane heal lovest joy
A Bland Buggatsarland Castle film son.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Of He was a York University in Toronto, Miami. The
year was nineteen ninety and he was really connected to
Brian Wilson, and not just the early sixties Brian Wilson,
but ran Wilson through the seventies when most people had
(25:47):
forgotten him. The band had at his direction at his
request kind of moved on. The Beach Boys had gone
on tour multiple times. He could not join them because
he was struggling with mental health problems so badly. And
at one point he had he was looking for inspiration
(26:08):
of the beach but in his home, so he had
loads of sand brought into his living room and dumped
in his living room, and he would walk from his bed,
which he struggled to get out of, which anybody who
knows anything about depression, people that really struggle with depression,
can have can can find it impossible to get out
(26:30):
of bed. Now that task alone. I've read about people
other than going to the restroom, not getting out of
the bed and not getting out of their bedroom for
months on end. Some of them very successful, some of
them are very famous for that matter. And Stephen Page
was connecting with this struggle for sanity, for stability, and
(26:57):
it meant something to him that Brian Wilson had all
so struggled in this way. So he was living in
his parents' basement, literally living in his parents' basement in Toronto,
and he had the band which they had named on
the when they're coming up with names, they thought it
would be cool when they were when they were in town,
(27:18):
the sign would say coming tonight bare Naked Ladies or
bare Naked Ladies Tonight, which is where that name came from.
So Stephen Page was only nineteen struggling with his own
mental health issues and begins a deep dive into Brian
Wilson and what Brian Wilson was going through. And he
(27:39):
wanted people who wanted other people to find solace in
the Brian Wilson story. And this is some would argue
the greatest American songwriter of all time, certainly one of
the greatest American songwriters of all time, one of, if
not the most influential American songwriter in pop culture. You know,
sixty five years later that's still true. And so he
(28:00):
wrote that tribute to him, and he lived in fear
how Brian Wilson would take it. Would he think he
was taunting him, or making fun of him, or insulting him.
And Brian Wilson was apparently moved to tears and came
to their concert and they brought him up on stage.
So I want you to imagine this moment gives me
(28:20):
chose to think about it. If you've written a tribute
to your favorite artist, and you've attempted very delicately, because
it's not something you do easily in the middle of
a hit song. You've attempted to address the difficulty of
mental health that he suffered from, that you yourself have
(28:41):
suffered from, without being over the top or kitschy or saccer,
and you want to bring attention to this. And he
comes up on stage with you and sings that song.
I don't know how you talk moment in your life.
I don't know how you put that. I don't know
(29:02):
where in your memory palace you put that moment, because
that ninety nine times out of one hundred, that doesn't
turn out that way. And he's hurt, insulted, angry, litigious,
who knows? And here is this moment that you everything
you wanted tribute to Brian Wilson and to try Brian
(29:22):
Wilson's struggle all brought to bear on the stage and
Brian Wilson joins in because he gets the spirit of
what you're doing. Woo boy, that's strong right there. I mean,
that is uh, that's deep, that is very very deep.
We went looking for a mental health partner several years ago.
(29:47):
I wanted somebody, because I kept getting messages from listeners
asking for where they could get help mental health help
often for them, probably more often because people aren't People
are a little uncomfortable to ask for themselves. But when
it comes to your teenager, there all hands on deck.
Hey guys, they'll blow a siren. Can somebody help me?
(30:11):
Because with mental health, with teenagers particularly, you worry about suicide.
And so I kept getting this request, and so I
would ask around and I couldn't find anybody, and so
Robert Reese. I put Robert rees one of our top
sellers on the issue of finding someone, and I put
the word out and we got emails, and he would
(30:32):
go and meet with them and say, you know, we
expect you to do this, this, and this, and we
expect to get great results. We expect to get great
feedback from our listeners when we do them. It's a
husband wife team and it's a full practice. I don't know,
they probably have twenty five thirty people there now.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
But.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
There were practices of just one person, and I'm sure
they were all very good, but they couldn't handle the
amount of referrals we were going to be sending. And
we have been very very happy with our partnership with
Family Psychiatry of the Woodlands. But whether you use them
or someone else, I have changed my opinion in fifty
four years. If you struggle with mental health, that doesn't
(31:10):
mean you should be the county judge because you may
not be set up to do that, but it does
mean that you should get help. That is a real thing.
It's a real thing to have mental health issues. And
it's a real thing to be debilitated and not be
able to get out of bed, and it's a real
thing to not be able to function as a human being.
And you didn't choose that, and you're not weak. It's
(31:31):
a sickness. It's an illness, and like every other illness,
it deserves to be treated
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