TDS and an Open-minded Uber Driver

After arriving in Australia, I encountered an open-minded Uber driver who had questions about Trump.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The news, opinions, commentary and interviews you need to start
your day. This is the West Carol Morning Show.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Monday morning, June twenty third. I'm Wes. Thanks for joining
me taking the show mobile as I am visiting family
and friends in Australia in the northeastern part of Australia
in the tropics, where it is wintertime, and I am

(00:29):
currently in shorts because in the tropics wintertime feels a
lot like a nice crisp fall day. For us, maybe
an early spring, you know, in the southeast, specifically in Georgia,
specifically there in the Chattahoochee Valley where we typically do
the show from, we get two three weeks of spring,

(00:52):
two three weeks of fall really, and then we have
all those ups and downs where it's really hot. And
I know the weather is going to be very hot
this wee week there. I've seen the forecasts and my
meteorologist that's on the road with me, Luke, has been
updating me on what the weather is going to be
like there. And I'm just saying that now for you

(01:13):
because I'm in shorts and it's wintertime. As the northern
Hemisphere just had its longest day the southern Hemisphere just
had its shorter day, and here in the tropics it's
really kind of warm, even early in the day. It

(01:34):
was a little cool this morning, but not cold. I'm
still in shorts. I'm doing the show outside because I
thought it would be best to come outside and maybe
get some animal noises in the background. I'm not an expert,
and as I said that, a bird, a little tiny
magpie just flew right up to me. And if the

(01:55):
magpies will start singing, it's a fun sound to have
in the background. But I'm not an expert on the
foul of Australia, so I'm not going to be able
to identify. Oh there we go, right on cue, nicely done.
The little magpie decided to sing a bit that's very authentic.
I know it sounded like I had a sound effect

(02:16):
cued up for you, but that's not really what happened.
So anyway, I'm enjoying some cooler weather this week, and
I promise not to make too big of a deal
about it. I've already had my family tell me how
much they hate me for being away from the very
strong heat that's coming. And I know it's been a
lot of rain this is the dry season. This part

(02:39):
of the country especially is very much a wet season
dry season more so, Oh, I hope the magpie stays.
There's another bird that's coming up. I'm not sure which
one has been chirping, but anyway, one of them is
eating something off of the ground right next to me.
So my in laws live in the northeastern part of

(03:01):
the country in a city called Townsville, much like the
one in The Powerpuff Girls, and it's not the same
city though I don't think I'm not an expert on
that any more than I am an expert on the
foul of Australia. But this particular neighborhood where they live
has this really beautiful lake that's has a nice walking

(03:25):
trail around it and picnic tables, and I will probably
be doing most of my shows from this area. And
lots of pelicans. They don't make a lot of noise,
but there's a pod of pelicans, which we've learned is
the correct terminology for a group of pelicans. Also a
scoop of pelicans, which I think I like that one better.

(03:46):
It does make a lot of sense. So I'll be
here doing this. We're going to be traveling around the
country to a few different places, including setting up some
things for possible in twenty twenty nine back for the
eclipse that's coming and up in the northeastern part, sorry,

(04:07):
northwestern part of the country in the Kimberly region, there
will be Totality and doctor Sean Cruisin and I, who
do the Mate of Stars podcasts together and have been
doing that as a radio show and podcast for a
very long time. We're looking at the possibility of putting
together some sort of a trip to be here for

(04:28):
Totality for that, so doing a little investigating and some
research for that while I'm here as well, which of
course means I can write this trip off. If the
taxman is listening, I just want to make sure that's
very clear. We are doing research for a future show
that we will be doing multiple shows that we will
be doing from Australia in about four years from now,

(04:51):
So taxman pay very very close attention to that. Oh,
when a scooter just went by, he is tearing by.
I guess the kids are headed off to school. This
is also the time of year in Australia because the
seasons are different. They're still in school and of course
back home. We're on our summer break, which is you know,
it's winter here, so the kids are still in school.

(05:13):
They're not getting that break. So a school kid is
it by on a scooter, I guess, on his way
to school. So there's a lot to cover. And I
know there's been a lot that's gone on since I
actually left, and I'm going to tell you this, my
conversations about Iran will be a little limited this morning.

(05:34):
I know that a lot has happened, and I know
that there's a lot of folks on edge. I can't
pretend to be an expert on geopolitical situations like what's
happening in Iran. I can just tell you that our
president did something that he really sort of said he
was going to do during the previous term and never

(05:56):
had the opportunity, I guess, to do it before he
was out of office, and has now gotten his opportunity
to do that, and conflicting stories on how effective it was,
and I know it really has come down to party
lines in a lot of ways. We've got folks that

(06:16):
support him and say that he did the right thing
and that it was effective. We've got folks that said
he absolutely shouldn't have done it, and how dare he?
And all those things, and all those sorts of things
really do sadly come down to party lines. But as
that progresses a little bit, we'll be able to talk
a little bit more about it. I am a little

(06:37):
bit limited on some of the US news here. I
can follow some of it, I could not really follow
it so much while we were in transit. And that's
really largely what I want to talk about on the
show this morning. Our trip to get here. And I
told you last week that some of the shows were
going to be pre recorded because we would be in motion,
and I think I told you at one point by

(07:00):
Thursday or Friday we would be here. And we had
a delay of some significance on our way here. We
made our way to the Atlanta Airport where we were
set to fly out from LA from Atlanta to LA
and then LA to Melbourne and then Melbourne here to Townsville.

(07:20):
And that was the course that we were supposed to take.
That was the trip that we booked. And once we
got to Atlanta, there were several delays on our flight
to LA. And as the day went on and the
delays kept happening, and apparently it was a problem with
the plane. I think the plane had to be redirected
somewhere or landed, but it was in Dallas. Our plane

(07:41):
was in Dallas and it could not make it to Atlanta.
Those are different, bro, Those are larakeets, rainbow larakeets. You
just heard go by. I do know a little fowl.
I don't know all the foul. So anyway, the plane
was not able to deliver us to LA in time
to catch our flight to Melbour because we were going

(08:02):
to arrive in LA much later than that. And apparently
we only just barely made it out of Atlanta on Tuesday,
which was our first day of travel. So when we
landed in LA, we spent some time gathering what we
had and heading to a hotel because there were issues

(08:23):
with the plane. American Airlines took care of putting us
up in a hotel near the airport, and at that point,
by the time we checked in, it was three am
on our time on Wednesday, midnight on Wednesday for LA time.
So we got into our hotel and really just crashed hard.

(08:43):
We got up the next day and there's only one
flight that goes from LA to Melbourne, and when you
miss it, then you have to go twenty four hours later.
And then the complication there was the flight from Melbourne
to Townsville for the following day, which we would have
been on, was full, so we didn't have a way

(09:06):
to get up to Townsville that day, so they redirected
us from la to Brisbane, which is actually much closer
to Townsville. And it's a shorter flight. And everyone likes
to ask, and you may be wondering how long is
the flight? Well, the I'm watching a quantis plane go overhead.
Now the uh, I guess this is probably headed to Brisbane.

(09:29):
Possibly this is the return flight of that. Anyway to'
probably get really allowed here in a second, I don't
know it maybe high enough that doesn't count as foul
as something flying overhead. Anyway, Sorry, there'd be a lot
of distractions while I'm working outside. There's a lot of
ooh squirrel for me going on, even though there's no
squirrels here. So anyway, we had to ultimately end up

(09:56):
redirecting it to Brisbane short in the flight. Normally the
flight would have about sixteen sixteen and a half hours.
The flight to Brisbane, though, was in the fourteen and
a half hour range. We actually got in a little
bit early and had a few hours at the Brisbane Airport. Now.
One of the nice conveniences of that particular redirection is

(10:20):
our friend Kelly, who sang at our wedding back many
years ago. Kelly sang a You two song for us
at our wedding, and her husband Graham, who I have
this memory of meeting Graham, but I feel like I
know Graham because he and I communicate on social media

(10:41):
quite a bit, and Graham is a very talented musician.
They both are very talented musicians. Obviously she sang at
our wedding. We wouldn't have asked someone who couldn't sing
to sing at our wedding. But she's also both performers,
but she's also a stage performer as well, so very
talented family. And the last trip we were here five

(11:03):
years ago, we were able to spend time with Kelly
and their daughter, but Graham was not well and we
weren't able to see him. I think they suspect that
maybe they at that point even had COVID, which was
before the outbreak, and I know there's a lot of
questions about how soon maybe people were getting it, but
we weren't able to see him then. But soon after that,

(11:25):
when we started the Mate of Stars podcast, I reached
out to Graham and I said, Hey, would you be
interested in writing a theme song for this show that
we do? And he said absolutely, And if you listen
to Met of Stars, you know we've talked about what
a great job he did putting that together because he
listened to one episode of the show, got the gist
of what we do, and it just came up with

(11:47):
this amazing opening song for it, and we were able
to They came to the airport in Brisbane, the two
of them, and I guess I officially met Graham face
to face. I was convinced he was at our wedding.
I have a memory of him being there that I
guess I created on my own. But I was glad
to actually finally be able to see him face to
face and thank him properly for that great theme song

(12:08):
that he wrote for us and performed for us. And
we caught up with them a bit at the airport
before we headed up to Townsville. So we'll still get
a little time in Melbourne with family on our way
out because our plan on this trip will eventually lead
us to Melbourne before we head back, assuming that all
the flights happen as expected. But it's been great seeing family.

(12:32):
That was the main objective of this trip was to
get my bride home to see her family, and also
to get my children home to see their family, their grandparents,
and and that's currently what we've got going on. We
will see Jill's brothers and some of their family along
the way and as many as we can fit in friends.

(12:54):
And Jill went by her old high school to have
a look around or as they say here, a sticky
bee poker nose around and see her old university where
she graduated. And so Jill is a graduate of James
Cook University here in Townsville. And then also she got
her masters at Columbus State, so that's she's got the
double connection between her hometown and my hometown. And she's

(13:17):
employed at Columbus State. So it's really nice. I don't
know what bird that was, but he's pretty loud. So
that's the plan. This week. I'll be checking in as
much as I can. I will be covering some of
what's going on that I normally talk about. The last
thing I'll say about this trip, and it was one
of those moments where we were at the airport with
our baggage and people. There was not quite enough room

(13:41):
for the pick up at the airport, so Jake and
I ended up in an uber with a very nice
lady who one of the first things she said when
she realized we were Americans was, you know, she started
asking questions about Trump, and I thought, oh, here we go.
I'm on vacation at the moment. Can we not do this?
But she was very inquisitive, and she was very observant

(14:03):
in that she was saying, Hey, I think the news
we get here about you guys and him is not
exactly accurate. And I said, the news we get into
States about him is not exactly accurate either, So you're
probably getting a double layered transit, like you're getting our news,
probably filtered very much to the left, and then you're

(14:23):
getting it here and maybe you're hearing it from folks
on the left. And she said, that's the impression that
I've had of it. And she said it's kind of unfortunate.
Sometimes I pick up people from the airport from the
States and they pretend to be Canadian so that we
don't have to talk about him, and that made me
a little sad. I think that's not necessarily surprising or

(14:45):
unexpected that you have Americans, that you have Americans right
now that are cheering for Iran because they just hate
Trump so much. So it's not a big shock that
you would have people that would do that. But we
had a nice conversation. I didn't really want to talk politics,
but she was really open to hearing things, and I
felt like, well, here's an opportunity to sort of set
a few things straight at the very least, or at

(15:05):
least point her in the right direction on where she
can learn things so to get a better idea of it.
And it was nice to know that there are people
here who have kind of awakened to this whole thing
about Oh, Trump is evil, Trump is the devil and
all those things. So Trump derangement syndrome is very, very real.
It's made its way around the world, and it's nice

(15:27):
to know that at least one Uber driver in Australia
is open to hearing a little bit more before she
makes her opinion. So nice job, Naz that was her name.
So anyway, we're going to be doing the show from
here for at least the rest of this week, and
we've got a few other stops we'll make along the way.
There is a great Barrier Reef snorkeling expedition coming for

(15:51):
the Carroll family, and we'll do that a little further
up the coast. But right now just enjoying some cooler
weather here in Townsville.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Today's show brought to you by Columbas State University's Coca
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(21:01):
they have these, you know, whatever the fat is for
the summer. And basically this year's drink of summer is
one that we can't get in the States or here
in Australia. You have to go to Europe to get them.
It's called the Sardi sprits and it's made like apparel sprits.

(21:24):
I don't know these drinks. You have to excuse me,
and it's got ingredients that you have to go I
guess to Italy to get Sardi is a pink Italian
liqueur and it's pretty impossible find in the US. What
you can do until importers start bringing it in is

(21:45):
go with the lilt rose or is it lil a rose?
Seems like it should be right with flavors of red berries,
orange blossom, and grapefruit fruit. The ramazati a perativa rosato
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(22:05):
I guess that's part what you want for the drink
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that'll do it for this Monday edition of the show.
Thanks to our sponsors and patrons. Thank you for listening.
I'll catch you back here tomorrow morning.

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