08-10-26 FULL SHOW - I'm Back, What'd I Miss

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mandy Connell and I am back from vacation, joined today
by none other than Zach because a Rod is out
covering everything training camp related, and I do mean everything.
If you're not following our social media, you are missing it.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Friday, we will.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Start our first preseason gain, Zach, can you believe that
football season is already here? I did not know first
of all that my show ends at one o'clock on Friday,
and because of the preseason game, and I went, wait,
what what?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
What? What? Preseason? What are we talking? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Preseason already here? Friday night, they will be at the
Falcons in Atlanta. You can hear coverage starting here at
one o'clock.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
We got Ben and Nick coming in at one o'clock
on Friday to kick off our coverage. Kicking off what
is sure to be I think this. I'm so excited
about this football season. I don't even mind being preempted. Seriously,
I don't think I'm preempted very much this year. How
many Monday night or three Thursday night games? Do you know,
Zach Man?

Speaker 3 (01:02):
I know they at least have one Monday and one Thursday,
and then they'll have the three Friday preseason games. Oh,
I think there might be a Christmas thing in there too.
There there's at least two times in the regular season
they have in week games.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
There might be a third.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Hang on, I'm just looking for the Broncos three preseason matchups,
so I think I will be a little bit there,
but I don't care. I'm excited about this. Yeah, we
got three Friday night games. One Monday night game against
the Chefs, that's opening night, and then Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

(01:39):
Thursday night against the two Fridays.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
But those are the preseason games.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Well, no, but in the in the regular season, one
of those is the Black Friday game.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I don't know if we'll be broadcasting. We'll be broadcasting.
And then the other one's Christmas, Okay, so those will
be fine.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Those will be fine anyway, looking forward to it. This
is going to be a really, really good season, and
I hope you guys are ready.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Let's go Mandy Candy, OMG, new intro.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Here's the thing, you guys, I had not heard the
new intro until it just played. And in the next
hour there's another new intro. In the hour after that,
there's another new intro because the song I chose is
not only awesome on the ramp, it's also awesome on
the hook, and it's awesome on the exit. So I
was like, AJ, make something with these, and AJ did.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Now I want to.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Start by talking about the fact that I just went
on vacation, and you all know that because I wasn't
here last week. I had in many ways like the
best vacation.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
We went to Alaska. We did an Alaskan cruise.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
It was me and Chuck, all of our children and
our grandchildren, and I got to spend so much time
with my grandsons and it was a blast. Now, I
took very few pictures this time, and this is a
petty and small reason. In our family we have a
division of picture labor. My husband takes pictures of people,

(03:01):
and I take pictures of landscapes of things. Now I
take pretty amazing landscape photos, if I do say so myself,
of things, I love taking photographs of like that because
I'm making I want to have thousands of photographs. So
when I'm old and I start taking watercolor classes, I
have just a huge array of which to choose of

(03:21):
things to paint, right, So that is kind of why
I take landscape photos. But the weather was overcast. We
didn't have rain, which was nice. We didn't have a
lot of rain, but it was overcast. It was chilly,
which I will say I was not totally prepared for.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
I underpacked. People on the cruise.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Ships saw too sweaters quite often, but I don't care
because I don't know any of those people, and we
just had an amazing vacation. If you've ever wanted to
go to Alaska, I've heard the statistically, out of everyone
in the United States of America, less than fifteen percent
of Americans have ever been to Alasta. And yes, it

(04:00):
is a commitment to get there, but man, what a
beautiful place.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Have you been there, Zach?

Speaker 3 (04:07):
I haven't, but my girlfriend has, and she talks about
how gorgeously.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
This is what I want to say to Colorado. It
is like Colorado, only with water and everything's green.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
It's beautiful. It's just stunning.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
We saw whales, we saw all kinds of stuff, and
I got to spend a lot of time with my
kids and grandkids, which.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Is really what it was all about. We did discover that.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
As a family vacation, the cruise was not a favorite
for not everyone in our party loved it.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
I don't think they had a horrible time.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
But then I had already booked this horrific set of
flights for my children to get home because they live
in outside Dayton, Ohio, and getting them to Dayton is
a multi step process. There are no direct flights from
Dayton to Vancouver, Canada, which is where we flew out
of and as of this moment, they are still not home.
Their flight was delayed last night. It was already a

(04:58):
horrible situation, and their flight was delayed. They missed their connection,
they had to reroute them and what should have taken
like twelve hours, which is one of the reasons that
I booked the horrible set of flights, because I was like, look,
that's the shortest flight time. Is now going to take
them twenty four hours to get home? Right now, there's
somewhere in Denver. We're like, do you want us to
come pick up? Nope, We're just gonna hang out there

(05:20):
on a nine hour layover in Denver right now.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, And I feel terrible. I feel terrible about this.
Not that I had anything to do with the mechanical
that caused a problem, but it's like you know already
they already committed and went to a vacation that was
not necessarily their thing, and then it's miserable getting home,
absolutely miserable. Can airline travel be any worse? Yes it can,
Yes it can. Let's go to the blog and I'll

(05:45):
tell you how after this. Find the blog by going
to Mandy blog dot com. That's mandyblog dot com. Look
for the headline right there at the top eight ten
twenty six blog. I'm back what I miss?

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Click on that and here are the headline and you
will find within I didn't know where someone is in
office South American all with ships and clipments and say
that's going to press.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Plant today on the plug. First off, let's talk vacation.
Turn that down just to hear their zach. Now let's
talk forest management. We're finally going to get a woman definition.
Whoever is running the governor's social media please stop. Vick's
new merch scheme isn't going to fly. There's a celebration
of life to attend.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
We were all.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Told the same lives as gen X kids. It's time
to fix heads start. I'm a yes on natural gas.
Jeffco Schools wants more of your money. Could GLP ones
also help alcoholics? A fun way to waste some money? Yes,
may I'm excel decides your comfort level. Now another business
more smashed windows. Israel says no to Trump's hamasteel. This

(06:47):
guy makes me laugh way too hard. Expect this on
Frontier soon. AOC just bought the just freeze your eggs nonsense. Yes,
consumer goods are getting way way worse. Routines are essential
for a happy life, all right, Pey Coder, She's not wrong.
Gen Z just discovered nineteen eighties purses. Why are our

(07:08):
veggies trying to kill us? Another airline lifetime ban is
in order. Yes, the Denver airport is far Those are
the headlines on the blog at mandy blog dot com.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yes, toe, oh tip tap toe, Oh.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Winner, She forgot that I was back. She was back
in the back having coffee.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
She's rusty.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, Mandy was there enough
to do for the grandkids for the most part. Yes,
there was a bit of complaining. The grandkids are eight
and nine, so there's a bit of complaining. And we
did not go on one of those big mega ships
with all the slides and all that crap.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
First of all, was too cold, really.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
Was.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
It was downright chili and it was damp cold, you
know what I mean. So it's not the dry cold
that we have here that is glorious. It was damp
cold and it was It was not too cold for
the hot tap, but too cold for.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Me for the pool. There was no way I was
getting the pool. Not happening, Mandy.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Maybe if your kids and grandkids are listening to you
on the radio right now, if they're in Denver, why
didn't they Uber and iHeart Media to watch you do
the show because they're not that impressed with me at
this point. Omg, Mandy, my wife takes lanscop landscape photos
while me, like Chuck, I take photos.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Of the hotties.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Lol, Kevin, I'm assuming that you're taking pictures of your wife.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Kevin. The haughty Mandy went.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
To Alaska the week before you. Makes you kind of
glad for the dry, hot weather. No Mosquitos this year.
I got eaten alive in Alaska. There was not a
bug to be found in Alaska.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
There was nothing.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Mandy, welcome back. You should play name that tune with
your new theme song. Nice pick. My theme song is
so obscure that I bet you other this texture seems
to know what it is. Maybe I will. Maybe I will.
At the end of at the beginning of the next hour,
when the next next part of the theme song plays,
we'll play name that tune and see if anybody can
guess the song without using the Google search. You know,

(09:08):
don't do that, Hi, Mandy. A couple of notes from
last week. Michael Brown filled in on your seventeen minute
show last Wednesday, which was disappointing lol. Also next with
Kyle Clark celebrated ten years. I saw hilarious comment that
Mandy Connell on eight to fifty KOA and John rush
on five sixty KZ will probably be sending him.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
A cake and balloons. Go darn tutin. He doesn't need cake.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
He's a slender man. He probably doesn't eat cake. No,
I did not see Russia from Alaska. I didn't look though,
to be honest. How did the T shirts work out?
The T shirts were a hit.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
We wore them on the first.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Day Chuck word bright yellow T shirts so we could
be seen from space, and so many people were like,
oh my god, what a great idea. We did see
other families with T shirts and sweatshirts, and I was like, see,
I would have been jealous if i'd seen them, but
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Now because I have my own T shirt.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
It was a great idea and utterly fantastic idea. So
that is what's going on. I just mentioned could airline
travel be any worse? And I'm just gonna start with
this because just when you think traveling by air which
should be a glorious experience, and it used to be

(10:26):
back in the even in that late twentieth century, air
travel was still kind of fancy. I became a flight
attendant in nineteen ninety one. And when I was a
flight attenant in nineteen ninety one, people came dressed in
actual clothing to fly. They didn't show up in their pajamas.

(10:46):
And they were polite, They were respectful, they were kind.
It was easy to be a flight attendant because most
people were really, really.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Really nice.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
Not anymore.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
I blame this on what I called back in like
nineteen ninety three, nineteen ninety four, the greyhoundification of airline travel.
In one of those summers, and I don't know which
year it was, ninety three or ninety four, I guess
travel was down whatever airlines started offering fares that were
like ninety dollars one way, and that brought all new

(11:23):
manner of new flyers to the air Now here's the thing,
you guys. I am not judgmental of people that do
not make a lot of money, because at times in
my life I have not made a lot of money,
and I get it. I'm glad they're discount airlines that
provide a service for people who don't have a lot
of money to get around in an easy way. Although

(11:44):
I don't think the discount airlines are all that all
that great in terms of saving money. By the time
you pay all the fees. Oh, oh you bought a ticket.
Oh you want a seat, We did not sell you
the seat. You have to pay to get the seat.
Oh you want to go to the bathroom. We're going
to need a dollar to get into the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
But this is a new one.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
There is an airline in Australia, a budget airline in
Australia that is now charging passengers to use the overhead bin. Okay,
so all of the people that have been doing carry
on bags to get away from the baggage fees that
you must pay are now going to be charged to

(12:25):
put those bags in the overhead bin.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
You're right.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Jetstar is the name of the company, and it has
made its passengers furious.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Furious.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
The reality is is that airlines are essentially saying, Oh,
we're gonna give you the seat, but we're not gonna
let you bring any luggage. You're gonna have to pay
extra for that. How absurd is that.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
There.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
It's gonna get to a point where in Europe. Now, Europe,
of course, being much smaller overall than the United States
of America, they have they have luggage transfer services. So
if you land in London and you have eight bags,
and you're gonna drive around for a couple of weeks
and then you're gonna end up in Milan, Italy, you

(13:11):
can pay to have those six bags that you don't
need for the whole trip transferred to Milan, Italy. And
it's actually pretty cheap all things considered. So are in
the United States. It's just not as feasible in Seattle
to Los Angeles. You can't necessarily throw that on a
train and get that there in a day like they

(13:31):
do in Europe.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Now.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
The new policy in Jetstar begins in February of twenty
twenty seven. Overhead bin space will start at about eighteen
dollars one way, depending on the route. And this is
where it gets great. This is you ever want to
know the importance of marketing. When I sold radio, and
I sold radio for a brief time until I realized

(13:56):
I wasn't very good at selling radio and I was
much better at being on the radio. But when I
was selling radio, one of my big pitches that I
got from my friend Lindsey. And I was not in
Colorado when this happened, by the way, I was in Florida,
and I would use this and I would say, look,
Pike's Peak is the eighth highest peak in Colorado. Can
you name the first outside of Colorado? No one knows

(14:19):
that it's Mount Albert. No one, not a single person
knows that Mount Albert is the highest peak in Colorado.
And they would all say no, I have no idea.
And I would say Mount Albert. Do you know the
difference between Pike's Peak and Mount Albert? And they would
say no. And I would say, marketing, Pike's Peak is
a marketing result, right.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
This is also so they're marketing.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
This as quote priority carry on choice, priority carry on choice, Zach,
I fully expect this to come to Frontier in the
next year. Well absolutely fully expected.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
They'll find you a way to charge you for every
It just is making their own airline worse and worse
and worse.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
And that's one of the reasons that I love Southwest
before the activist investors took over and made it just
as crappy as every other airline.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
I'm bummed about that too. Well, now, at this stage.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
In the game, I have now acquired the credit cards
for whatever airlines I fly. Most of them sit unused
in my wallet. I don't even pull the Actually, most
of them are not in my wallet. I just have
them simply to buy a ticket on that airline, so
I don't have to pay luggage fees.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
That's I'm like.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh, you want to play, you want to make this
a system, you want to go. I can go smart,
I can beat you people at your own day. But
you should not have to have multiple branded credit cards
across multiple things in order to fly. By the way,
it gets worse. Items placed in overhead lockers will be
permitted to weigh up to twenty two pounds, so a

(15:56):
vast majority of those wheely carry on bags are going
to be well over that they will be no longer
subjected to staff weighing at the boarding gate. Oh wait,
and what yeah, twenty two pounds. Additionally, there's a fifteen
pound weight restriction on the items scored under your passenger seats.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Oh no, I'm sorry. That will be eliminated. That will
be eliminated. So there you go.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
So now you can shove your huge backpack under the
seat in front of you if you can. It's just
I have another story about things just getting crappy. There's
a word for it, and I don't think I can
say it on the air. I'm going to say in poopification.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
I was thinking the exact same thing when we were
talking about.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
It, And poopification is the concept, and it's usually in
s word ification.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
It's the concept put forth.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
And I don't remember the guy's name that that sort
of threw that word out, And it's a great word.
It just means that on the Internet, as a product
exists on the Internet, it gets worse and worse and
worse and worse. Every iteration becomes more hard to use
or less useful or more a buggy or whatever he
called it. The crapification. Oh, tech critic Corey Ductro. Now

(17:13):
we have increptification of all the products that we consume.
I've got an interesting article about this as brands consolidate.
And one thing that you have to understand about most businesses,
I don't want to say most businesses. How let me
let me think about how to rephrase this. I have

(17:35):
known multiple entrepreneurs who started a company and built it
to a certain level with the express purpose of selling
it to someone else. That is what they are doing.
That is what the goal is. Because when you build
it up to a certain level, some big company comes
in makes you an insane offer. Is you take the offer,

(17:56):
you go on to the next thing. I have several
friends who are serial entrepreneurs who have done that exact process.
It's very difficult to keep a business going in perpetuity. Okay,
it's very hard to make it work on and on
and on and on.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
So we have.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
A situation where people are selling their companies to bigger companies,
and the bigger companies don't necessarily care about the relationships
with the clients. And I've talked about this before, Like
you buy up something and then you buy it again,
and you're.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Like this is not the same at all.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Ben and Jerry two communists who started a really good
ice cream company. They're actually trying to buy back Ben
and Jerry's from Magnum, which is a Unilever's ice cream brand.
They want to buy it back because they have had
their ability to make political statements curtailed by Unilever, because
Unilever cares more about profits and politics.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
We're going to continue this conversation because.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
I think it's interesting and I want to know if
something you've had, you've purchased for really long time, you've
noticed in the last few years has turned into hot garbage.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
I have multiple examples. We'll do that next.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
What we're calling the and popification of stuff that all
started from this article that I have linked on the
blog at mandyblog dot com.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Not your imagination.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
From backpacks to food, consumer goods are getting worse. Is
it possible to avoid the continuing decline and quality of
consumer products brought on by greed? I hate the term
for corporate greed, and here's why. Most of these corporations
are not funded or excuse me, or not owned.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
By one entity.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Most of them are publicly traded, so what they're doing
is maximizing shareholder profit while destroying the products that the
shareholders bought because they once were good product.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
So we have and this guy.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
That's talked about in this article, Kaana Sap, went shopping
for a new backpack. The brands he remembered as a
kid were just not the same. He researched the companies
from north Face to Jamsport and Eastpac and soon realized
they were all owned by the VF Corporation after a wave.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Of acquisitions in the two thousands.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
After a Reddit post he made about his discovery picked
up traction. He started looking at other types of consumer goods, cookwaar, shoes, tools, clothing,
and it seems that that was the story repeated in
every industry. He's now got a website called Worse on
Purpose and it tells you who owns what and what
you should be buying instead. Now it's really difficult to

(20:47):
just be a consumer and know that you know, at
one time you could go when Sears owned the Craftsman
brand of tools. And I know that there's a lot
of men of a certain age in this listening audience
that are nodding their head along with what I'm about
to say. And that is Craftsmen tools used to be unbeatable.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
They lasted forever.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
And then Sears started having problems and one of the
first things they did was spin off Craftsmen to another company.
And I can tell you from experience, the quality dropped
like a stone. It was crazy, absolutely crazy. So I
ask you, guys, look, what did you used to use

(21:30):
that was fantastic that now is not at all at all.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
And this is let's see here, Mandy. Your best example is.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
The local doctor's office now corporate.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Oh boy, I could go for days about this.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Hospitals, because of incentives in the Obamacare bill, had been
buying up private practices left and right. As a matter
of fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a
medical practice that is not owned by a hospital system.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
And if you.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Were used to talking to the people in your doctor's
office that knew you, knew your family, greeted you warmly
when you walked in, well those people are gone because
their job was replaced by a central call center at
a hospital somewhere of people you've never met, never heard of,
and don't give a rat's assen you get into your
doctor today or never. They don't care that's a great
example text.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Here's one.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
In the year two thousand, I purchased a Cadillac Escalade.
Talk about pure quality. That car has three hundred and
sixty five thousand miles on it.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
It's still running like it's brand new.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
All the parts, interior parts have held up with normal
wear and tear replacement. In twenty twenty one, I purchased
another new Cadillac Escalade, plastic parts, paint falling off. The
quality just isn't there, Mandy. Yes, the company, the Ginger
people think their ginger choose the texture, initially sent a

(22:59):
ginger shoe us, which confused me because listening to the
rest of the sentence that the ginger shoes, which I
purchased for years and absolutely love, have now turned into
one big gooey blob with a slight ginger flavor.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Very disappointed.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Now you understand why I was confused when they were shoes, Mandy, funny,
you believer discontinued altogether. My favorite lotion, Saint Ives. Okay,
fun fact, I love Saint Ives oatmeal body wash and
I've been to multiple stores over the last year, and
I kept thinking, oh, they just stopped selling it, But
apparently they stopped making it.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
You know why.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
It was a lower price point brand. So the body
wash that I buy now is like nine dollars. The
body wash I used to buy was three fifty and
it's now gone. I only about the Saint Ives lotion,
but killing the entire brand makes sense, they continued after
I asked for clarification. Comcast business is exactly that says

(23:58):
this texture.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
They've always been soup. But I could deal with it
back in the day because they had a good product.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
But now with all these new fiber companies taking over
a affraction of the cost, what does Comcasts do make
their service more expensive for a now subpar product, Plus
all their customer service is all overseas. Yeah, Mandy, my
popification product is new balanced shoes. I used to wear

(24:24):
them all the time, most comfortable I could find. Now
they hurt my feet and they don't last.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Just junk.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, Mandy, I thought Festivus wasn't until December. We are
just getting to jump on things, folks, Mandy may Tag
washers used to be the best and last forever.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Now you can't get them the last a few years.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
I think all appliance brands, for the most part, suck
I think they build a refrigerator and they're like, what
do you think the lifestand should be?

Speaker 2 (24:52):
I don't know. Seven eight years tops.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
My parents had the same refrigerators my entire like, from
childhood straight through to adulthood. My parents never replaced a refrigerator,
never once, not ever. I have replaced two refrigerators in
the last thirteen years.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
Two.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
What is that, Oh, Mandy, didn't you have your own
problems with disposable refrigerators?

Speaker 6 (25:20):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yes, Tony Lama and Justin Boots used to be the
goats until they sold the Berkshire Hathaway. Now you have
to buy olathe A, leitha ole Oleitha.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
That's it.

Speaker 5 (25:36):
I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
I just got caught on that.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Or Rios of Mercedes still family owned. I used to
go with my dad to Seers to exchange Craftsmen tape
measures that he broke on the job site. I'm still
using my thirty year old craftsman tools every day all day.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
See that's what.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
I'm talking about. But do you buy them now? No,
you would not, because they're not They're not good. They're
just not good. Remember original michelob beer, so much better
than that garbage michelob Ultra.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Well, there's a two different.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Products, and I have tried to like mikelob Ultra, but
nickelob Ultra and any ultra beer, any super low car
beer pretty much is like the It's like the carbonated
water of beer. You know when you buy flavored water,
and it just is like somebody like I buy this

(26:27):
cranberry raspberry Lacroix.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
What I like?

Speaker 1 (26:29):
I drink a lot of fizzy water. I buy the
cranberry raspberry La Croix. But you take a you smell it,
You're like, oh, this is gonna be a delicious cranberry
raspberry beverage.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
And then you take a sick sip and it's.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Like someone walked by the can waving some raspberry and
cranberry flavoring and hoping it got in there. I mean,
let's be real, that's what those super low car beers
taste like to me. Are you a beer guy, Zach?
I've never asked you that. I'm not a big beer guy.
I'm more of a cocktail guy. But I sympathize with
what you're talking about. That berry you want to have
a beer if do you play whatever sport you're athletically,

(27:02):
I get it. Have a real beer, just have fewer
and then switch to bock de soda. If you're carb conscious,
you're fine, You're absolutely fine.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
I cannot even I cannot even tell you how many
of these text messages are just about appliances, because appliances
all suck. Someone did give me a great piece of advice, though,
They said, never buy an appliance from somebody who makes
televisions because they're worried about the wrong stuff. They're worried
about whether or not they can have a screen that

(27:32):
you can make a grocery list on. They're worried about
how it looks. They're not worried about the functionality of
the refrigerator. And that's been great advice. Cabella's was brought
down when vas Pro bought them out. Mandy recently our
dryer of twenty years, the motor went out. We called
a repairman who quoted around five hundred dollars for a
new motor. I asked him if it was worth replacing

(27:54):
or would it be better to spend seven hundred dollars
for a new dryer. He said, the new appliances don't
last because of the energy they're forced to comply with
and that he would recommend repairing the old all day long.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
So we did. Still running like a champ. Yep, yep, Mandy.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Don't get me started on customer service. I've worked in
farmant healthcare for twenty eight years.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
We don't have the ability to have a.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Bad day at work because we can't don't have the
opportunity to sit across the table from a family and say, sorry,
your husband overdose on medication we made. We've been waiting
on acceptable cabinets from Mllew's for a bathroom remodel for
a year now.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Really, why haven't you just can't?

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Why didn't you just cancel the order? I mean, at
what point do you just go yeah, we're not doing that.
Speaking of sparkly water, have you seen clearly Canadian his back?

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Did they go away? Did I miss the going away part?
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
I didn't miss that, all right, Moving on, I would
recommend you guys look at this guy's website, Worse on
Purpose dot Com. Fascinating, fascinating about how many brands that
used to compete with each other are now under the
same umbrella. Hit me with stuff that has gone just

(29:14):
down the crapper. I had no idea gas furnaces made
of ten. Today I have fifty to six year old
furnaces in my home made of steel. Mandy. My sister
was dinged on a performance review because her customer ratings
were too high, meaning to the company that she was
spending too much time with each customer.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
Oh gosh, Mandy.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
We have a g freezer that my wife's grandmother moved
to Colorado sixty one years ago. Still runs great. So
we have a drop freezer in our house. I don't
know how old it is. It has a storied lore
behind it. Chuck negotiated for it when he bought a
house in Florida, and there was a big kerfuffle because

(29:59):
it was he bought the house from a divorcing couple
and the wife took the freezer when she left, even
though Chuck had paid for it, and chaos ensued and
a big battle broke out over this drop freezer. And
long story short, we have it here in Colorado. It
still works great.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
I hate it.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
It's small, it's square. I despise this thing, but it
still works, Mandy. New vacuum cleaners are junk. We have
very little carpet, but thankfully we have two old school kerbies.
I will say this, I have a dog and a
lot of carpet, and our vacuum cleaners last about five years,
So now I won't overspend on a vacuum cleaner. I
view a vacuum cleaner as a disposable item.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
How many times am I going.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
To be able to use this versus how much does
it cost? I put a value proposition on how useful
something is. Like, for instance, I wear Genes to work
every single day. Now, some of my jeans I got
on sale at the Gap for fourteen dollars. But if
I find a pair of jeans that I really like
the cost one hundred, I'm gonna buy it because I

(31:02):
wear them.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Every single day.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Not the same pair, but I wear jeanes every single day,
so I'm gonna get tons and tons of wearing. But
if I am going to only get X amount of
uses out of that, then I'm much less likely to
spend a lot of money on it. Cinch Jeans based
in Denver used to be good, I think, but can't confirm.
They are owned by private equity now too. They were
never as durable as traditional wranglers, but they were acceptable

(31:27):
now for eighty bucks plus a pair. They are a
complete letdown. So yeah, ok, four oh nine eight, I'm
not reading that comment on the air. Mandy Wrangler jeans
made Riatta Dress jeans, which have been downgraded to quite
useless pants. The front pocket's got so shallow. Anything you
put in falls out when you sit down. And now

(31:47):
they have Spandex that relaxes after a few watches.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Now I am one of those people that loves little
Spandex and denim. I'm not gonna lie. Mandy.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Products have gotten so bad companies don't have phone numbers
anymore to even call them to tell them how bad
their product is.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, yep.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
Before I buy something, the first thing I do is
go look at their return and contact page, and if
it's just an email, I will not order from that
company because yeah, no, no, we're not doing that. We're
not playing that game anymore. We're just emailing someone in
China with that English and they're gonna tell you for

(32:29):
some reason, they're gonna be able to get you much wine. Okay, Now,
coming up in the next segment, we're changing. This has
been fun, though, to just complain about how everything's gotten worse.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
This is like an old man o or no.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Offense to old men, because you know, old men do
love to express their complaints loudly and vocally.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
So we are going to talk to.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
A guy in the next segment, specifically about something that
has been an absolute failure, and that is forest Managementson
Hayes is the Senior Research Fellow of Energy and Environment
at the Heritage Foundation, and he wrote a column how
bad policy fuels wildfires, and I thought, oh, how timely

(33:09):
we're going to talk about that. And this is a
guy he's not just an egghead and a nerd. He's
also a former forester himself. We're going to talk to
him next and find out what Colorado could be doing better. Yes,
you had Tod Chase from one public policy think tank to.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Another after I read a column by him.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Jason Hayes newly of the Heritage Foundation, formerly of the
Macinaw Center for Public Policy. He is the Senior Research
Fellow for Energy in the Environment, and he is also
a guy who knows a bit about forests, as he
spent some time in his past as a forester in
British Columbia. Jason Hayes, first of all, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
Oh thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
Oh no, I'm glad you could make it.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
I was just up in British Columbia going to Alaska
looking at their forests, asking about beetlekill and all kinds
of stuff going on up there, so it was a
lot of fun. I want to ask you about your column,
and I put it on Today's blog.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
How bad policy fuels wildfires?

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Because here in Colorado, I think that we are a
great example of poorly managed forests, and now we have
multiple forest fires happening right now, we're completely enveloped in smoke,
like we've been all summer long here in Colorado, not
the first summer as of late that we have had
this experience.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
How much of this.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Is, as we're told by our overlords here in Colorado,
the result of Mother Nature out of control. These are
difficult to reach, areas, hard to contain these fires. It's
global warming. It's everything but their fault. How much of
this is policy and how much of it is that?

Speaker 7 (34:52):
Yeah, a lot of it is policy. But one thing
people can always remember is that we've had forest fires
for as long as as we've had forests, so it's
not unusual to have fires, especially during later in the season.
August September, that kind of thing. But what we should

(35:13):
be doing is actively managing our forests. And it's especially
notable in federal forests where we've had a mindset over
the past fifty sixty seventy years, that a growing mindset
that people are bad for the natural environment, that we
really shouldn't be there. We should put fences around large

(35:36):
areas of forest and just kind of keep people up
because people just wreck stuff. But at the same time,
what we've done is when a forest fire starts, we
all remember smoky.

Speaker 4 (35:48):
They're telling us.

Speaker 7 (35:49):
You know, we can only you can prevent forest fires.
We go in and we actively manage those fires. So
what we don't manage the forests, but we do manage
the fire. And what happens over time is the forests
continue to grow, and then you get what's called fuel loading,
where trees and fine fuels, shrubs, grasses, all that kind

(36:12):
of thing build up, and then when a fire starts,
especially in a dry, hot year, then you have real problems.
It's difficult to put them out.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Well.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
To your point about fire being an important part of
the ecosystem, there are certain pine trees in Florida and
I'm sure they grow other places, but I grew up
in Florida, so I know about them. Then that do
not release seeds until there is a fire. So obviously
it is a part of the natural cycle. What part
of this you just laid out that we've stopped the fires,
but we're not managing that dense you know, fire fuel

(36:45):
that is in the forest.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
How what should we be doing differently?

Speaker 7 (36:50):
We should stop being afraid to cut down a tree.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with using our natural resources. That's
one of the the reasons I mean, the Good Lord
gave them to us, or one of the key portions
of having for us is because if we don't use them,

(37:12):
if we don't actively manage them, then something that you
said at the start of the call is correct. Nature
will manage it for us, and we won't always like
the nature's prescriptions or the decisions that nature makes in
starting big fires or as you said, like in PC

(37:33):
large areas of beetlekill and that sort of stuff. If
we're not using that wood, then nature will use it
for us. And so that's basically if we get in there,
we're not afraid to occasionally cut down a tree or
manage in the way of doing things like spacing and thinning.
Those will actually help because we can start to reduce

(37:55):
that heavy fuel loading. And when a fire starts, because
you won't be able to stop all the fires, but
when a fire does start, it's much easier to control,
or you could even just let it burn because it's
not going to be as bad, not as intense.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
So let me ask you specifically about beetlekill, because this
is a huge problem for us here in Colorado. I
several years ago was driving from the Denver metro area
over to Saratoga, Wyoming and drove past Medicine Bow National Forest. Jason,
it is just stand of dead trees after stand of
dead trees after stand of dead trees, thousands and thousands

(38:33):
of acres of dead trees. What do you do now
in order to prevent because I think any I mean
a lightning strike is going to create a massive, massive fire.
What did you do in that situation to better manage
that situation when you already have so many dead trees.

Speaker 7 (38:50):
Yeah, since you can't go back and manage it yesterday,
what you should do is manage that stuff today, especially
with needle kill or you know, fire damage, timber. You
have to get to it pretty quickly because it starts
to dry up. I mean, we've all had our wood
pile in our backyard what we use for our fireplace

(39:12):
or you know, our fire pit. And when you leave
dead wood sitting or standing in a forest, what happens
is it dries out, and that dead standing timber is
extremely dangerous, especially during a dry, hot year. So the
next thing is you deal with that, those those big

(39:34):
areas of dead standing timber. But you also come in
and you deal with the stuff you can when when
you're managing forest, you can go out. You can see, oh,
here's an area that's starting to be impacted by bark
beetles or something like that.

Speaker 4 (39:48):
Because you can look at.

Speaker 7 (39:49):
The trees and see the frast fobes and that where
the beetles bore into the side of the tree.

Speaker 4 (39:55):
You can see when an infestation is starting. And what
you can do is go in and manage that.

Speaker 7 (39:59):
Area before the timber dies, and then you can have
the wood that's actually useful for dimensional lumber or peeler
lugs for osb or ply water or that kind of thing.
But managing it proactively and getting in there and dealing
with these issues before they arise is a much better

(40:23):
and much less expensive, and much less harmful way of
managing our forests. Reactive has not served us as well
as proactive good.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Well, is there a.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Use for dead trees that have been standing dead for
some time? I mean, because my thinking is, and you know,
I just spit all this stuff all the time because
I don't really know that much about forest management. Well,
you know those those helicopters that have the dangling grinder
things that they just go and they just grind what's left.

Speaker 8 (40:52):
To the ground.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Would that be more productive than just leaving them standing there?
Or is there any usage where you could send in
laggers or you could send in people to harvest that
wo for any purpose after it's been standing for years like.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
That, probably not for years.

Speaker 7 (41:08):
Once it's dried and checked, then it's not any good
for things like dimensional number or it's much less good.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
You're not going to get a good quality timber.

Speaker 7 (41:18):
So you try to get it while the trees are
still alive or just recently killed by bugs or fire
or whatever.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
But yeah, you can.

Speaker 7 (41:29):
If you go in and you harvest those kind of
standing dead trees, you might be able to use them
for mulch or something like that, But then how much
mulch do you need? And the other part of it
is too helicopters are extremely expensive. It's much less expensive
to do that sort of thing with You can do

(41:50):
it with ground equipment. Those spinning drums that you're talking
about most of the time, you could do that with
ground equipment. It's much less expensive.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
Have so many areas that appear from where I am
looking from far away, they're not really accessible.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
There's no roads, there's no you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
That's part of the problem as well. What is when
we're talking about national forests, does that fall under the
responsibility of the National Forest Service? And if so, is
the National Forest Service remotely funded properly to do the
kind of national fire management that it sounds like we've
needed to do for some time.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
So, yes, it is.

Speaker 7 (42:29):
It's all part of the USDA, which is the US
Forest Service is an office within the agency of Department
of Agriculture and other areas also some areas are Department
of Interior, like Bureau of Land Management, especially in the
Western States, will be some of that, but it will

(42:52):
be in a lot of these areas. Federal agencies again,
especially in the Western States, it'll be federal agencies. So
as far as funding goes, there are ways to do this.
So while the Feds may not have enough people or funding,
there are things like the Good Neighbor Authority that allowed

(43:13):
the federal government to sign cooperative agreements with the states.
So I'm pretty sure even like Colorado has signed Good
Neighbor Authority agreements. What that does is it allows the states,
which are much closer to the action, they know the
area better than the federal managers.

Speaker 4 (43:31):
They can basically.

Speaker 7 (43:33):
Go out and contract with private contractors to do some
of the work. Also as part of the GNA or
Good Neighbor Authority agreements.

Speaker 4 (43:41):
What happens is when they do that.

Speaker 7 (43:44):
Work the private contractors obviously they can make money doing that,
they can hire people and produce jobs, but the states
get to keep some of the money that's involved with
managing it. The royalties for timber and that kind of
thing actually works to pay for the work that's getting done.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
But again, you have.

Speaker 7 (44:04):
To be willing to go in and actually cut down
a tree and sell some of the wood.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
So we've terrified ourselves. We're scared to death.

Speaker 7 (44:13):
Of the notion that somebody might cut down a tree
and use it, because again we have this mindset that
people are bad for the environment and logging of any
sort or any sort of forest a forest management activity, is.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
Going to harm the forests. But that's not the case.

Speaker 7 (44:29):
The forests are quite resilient, and the management that you
do in those sorts of situations is actually much less
harmful than some of these big thirty fifty one hundred
thousand acre burns that you see.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
If just just go.

Speaker 7 (44:46):
In and when they're so hot, they can actually sterilize
the soil. They kill almost everything, these really hot burns,
and it would have been much better for the forest,
for the wildlife in there, for the water quality, for
air quality, if the forest had been managed proactively beforehand.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Are you less likely to have to deal with because
now we just had one hundred thousand acre fire here
in Colorado, and now we're having ar monsoon season, so
we have to worry about flash flooding and in the
burn scar and things of that nature.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Is it a better management practice.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
To go in with, you know, loggers cutting down those
dead trees, leading the stumps in the ground. Are you
less likely to have to deal with mud slides with
the dead roots in the ground, or you know what
I'm asking, like, what would be a better strategy here?
Is burning it down better or worse? It sounds like
it's worse in the grand scheme of things for the
reasons you just outlined, But what about that sort of

(45:42):
recovery that happens after a fire very slowly, but it
does kind of happen.

Speaker 7 (45:48):
That's the kind of thing where as a forester, you'd
want to walk the ground before you started making broad
prescriptions and saying, oh, this is always better here, Or
you'd want to see things like how how how many
trees there are barak or how thick is the soil
like is it real thin layers over top of rocky outcrops?

Speaker 4 (46:11):
Those kind of things you want to check.

Speaker 7 (46:13):
Also, are there there are there shrub species coming back
in after the beetles killed those those trees. You know
when the when the crown of a tree die is
you want to the sun will come in and start
to shine on some of this, so there may be
shrubs that are holding the soil together. Again, you, as

(46:34):
a forester or a scientist, you'd want to walk the
area and say, here's what's what's best for this specific area,
says One thing to remember all of these sorts of questions.
A lot of the time, the best UH solutions are
site specific.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
So when you.

Speaker 7 (46:53):
Get like broad, sort of sweeping prescriptions from groups they say, well,
you know, you need to stop clear cutting or you
need to stop doing something, it's like, well, not necessarily.
Maybe if the ecology of the species that's being managed,
Like you talked about some pine trees in the south,

(47:14):
also pine trees all throughout the mountain west, jack pine,
lodgepole pine, they have those same kind of cones that
you were talking about. It's called seratinous cones. They only
open when they're exposed to heat, such as in a fire.
Those kind of trees, that species of trees actually evolved

(47:34):
or was designed to grow under those conditions large stand
clearing fires, and then the seeds the cones open and
the seeds spread and then you get a rush of
growth from new trees. So some trees that actually works
pretty well, you could go in and you could cut
and you could clear everything. Some other trees you want

(47:56):
different harvesting systems. But yeah, you're going to want to
walk the ground to see what's best solution.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
So there's definitely not a one size fits all solution
to forest management. But you just brought up clear cutting,
and that is whenever you talk about, hey, we're going
to have some you know, some logging in there, it
doesn't matter if they're going in and they're marking the
specific trees that they're going to take. Immediately, the opposition
is you're going to clear cut everything.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
The reality is much different.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Tell me about some other uh uh, some other ways
that forests can be managed without clear cutting large amounts
of trees down. They always show a picture from the
Brazilian Amazon. By the way, this is the thing they're
going to do. Look what happened to the Amazon, It's
going to happen here.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
Right.

Speaker 7 (48:43):
Yeah, Well, again, very different ecology and in the Amazon
than there is here. But in Colorado. Yeah, there are
some areas where it may make sense to do clearcuts. Now,
some people will bristle at that notion. It doesn't have
to be you know, several thousand acres. It could be
a small cut. It could be fifty one hundred and

(49:06):
two hundred acres. Again, you're gonna want to walk the
ground and see what it looks like and then you
can also design your cutting systems, as I did when
I was working as a forester in British Columbia in
the World Boreal forest. We used to design things like
leaf strips around rivers or streams. You could leave certain

(49:27):
areas around, you know, native heritage sites or any sort
of sensitive area if there's a wet depression or a
wetland or something like that. Or you can design all
of this into your cutting pyramits and you can say, look,
this is a value we want to retain or protect,
and you can just design your cut to do that thing,

(49:49):
whatever it is you want to achieve. So yeah, that
again broad prescriptions coming from Denver, or for even worse,
from Washington d when people haven't been out there looking
at what's actually on the ground. Those broad prescriptions from
people who haven't been out there and haven't seen the

(50:09):
ground generally get it wrong.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Well, Jason, I was just cruising Alaska and or you know,
cruising the Inside Passage in Alaska, and you can see
on these, uh, these hillsides next to the Inside Passage
where there have been obviously massive mud slides that have
taken out all of the tall spruce there.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
But you can also see the new the.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
New plant life that is taken hold in those landslide
or mudslide scars, or you know, or snowslide scars.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
It's to me take.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
The environment lists up there, like, this is truly what
nature does when given the chance. Because nobody's gonna put
out a fire, nobody's going to find stop a mud slide.
This is how it's supposed to work. So what what
can the what can the average citizen do to encourage.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Better forest management?

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Because I'll tell you right now, in Colorado, the level
of concern about forest management outside of those directly in
the forestry area is almost zero. Our politicians don't pay
attention to it, they don't talk to it. They pretend
like this is just how things are going to be
and there's nothing we can.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Do about it.

Speaker 7 (51:15):
Yeah, well, people should definitely at least get educated, get involved,
talk to whether it's your elected officials or whatever, you
should be doing that because a lot of those forests
anywhere where there's a slope, and there's one or two
slopes in the state of Colorado up the side of
a mountain, the water that comes off of that is

(51:38):
almost assuredly supplying the water that you will drink or
use for your you know, in your home.

Speaker 4 (51:45):
Any of those sorts.

Speaker 7 (51:46):
Of watersheds, if they are not managed properly and they
burn and you have an intense burn, then you can
start having things like you're saying, the mud slides and
that kind of thing, So that could directly impact your life,
in addition to other ways like you're saying, also the
smoke and the particulate and all that sort of stuff

(52:08):
that you're breathing in right now, or being evacuated if
the fire gets too close to your house. All of
those kind of things impact people directly where they live.
And it doesn't only have to be in fire season
because again, like you said, if there's a slide, because
dead timber, once those routes start to decay, they're not

(52:30):
holding the soil together anymore. So in a wet spring,
you could have a bad mud slide or something like that.
So if people don't encourage their state agencies to manage
those forests properly, or in the case of federal lands
and federal agencies, then yeah, you could be facing those
problems going forward.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Jason Hayes, a Senior Research Fellow of Energy and Environment
at the Heritage Foundation. Thank you so much for making
time for us. This is a problem and that's not
going to go away anytime soon. I just figured we'd
get some better information then you're getting here in Colorado.
I appreciate your time today.

Speaker 4 (53:08):
Yeah, thanks for having me on anytime.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
All right, Thanks Jason, We will be back.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Considers the Gaza deal a key achievement.

Speaker 5 (53:22):
That's NBC's Alice Barr.

Speaker 8 (53:24):
The son of Congresswoman Lauren Bobert, is facing legal trouble again.
Twenty one year old Tyler Bobert has been arrested on
three felony charges tied to the alleged sexual exploitation of
a child. He was taken into custody yesterday in Garfield County,
with court records listing the alleged offense dates January first
of twenty twenty four. Bobert's next court appearances schedule for

(53:47):
August nineteenth. Additionally, Tyler Bobert has two sentencing hearings schedule
for next month, one in Weld County in connection to
a twenty twenty five child abuse case, the other in
Garfield County stemming from a February twenty twenty four arrest
following a string of vehicle trespasses and property thefts.

Speaker 5 (54:06):
Fox thirty one pinpoint.

Speaker 8 (54:07):
Weather partly cloudy today, chance of a shower, a thunderstorm,
a high of ninety seven. Tonight partly cloudy, low sixty six,
and Tomorrow partly cloudy and afternoon thunderstorm possible Tuesday, SI
ninety eight. It's ninety two in Denver. Our next update
at two o'clock from the Common Spirit Health KOA News Desk.
I'm Chad Bauer on KOA. Let's get a check on

(54:31):
traffic with Chris McLoughlin.

Speaker 9 (54:35):
Taking a look around the Denver Metro and our major
metro highways in good shape. They are accident free. I
twenty five looks great between North Glenn and Castle Rock.
Two twenty five free and clear of any delay. Even
C four seventy looks good. Sixth Avenue through Lakewood up
to speed I seventy is decent. Here in town. Speeds
are good for the most part, and outdown outbound Peny

(54:55):
Boulevard is a little heavy making your way to I seventy.
But let's get a check on that I seven situation.
Up in the high Country, there was two separate accidents
and investigation work that have both sides of the Eisenhower
Tunnels shut down. There was a multi car crash inside
the tunnel and an officer involved crash just before the tunnel.
Now looking at the cameras and tow trucks are on
scene with that crash that's outside the tunnel, so cruise

(55:18):
are making progress here, but currently all traffic is still
being diverted onto Loveland Pass both directions. No estimated time
when that's going to reopen. I'm Chris McLaughlin on KOA
eight fifty am and ninety four one FM.

Speaker 4 (55:31):
This report is sponsored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Speaker 10 (55:35):
For victims of drunk and drug driving, our grief is unique,
but you are not alone. You always have a place
at MAD call our twenty four hour victim helpline at
eight seven seven MAD Help, or visit MAD dot org.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
All right, my friends, it's time to talk about the
store that I laughed harder about than any other news story.
When I got to the airport yesterday in Vancouver to
fly home, Bao tomato, tomato, ooh. I open up my
phone and I look at the news. I didn't look
at the news once last week. It was glorious.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
And I see this story about the WNBA.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Now Zach, I realized, Zach and freirod as he's a
training camp. I realized, what a huge WNBA fan. I mean,
what with you coming in wearing your Sophie Coningham jersey today.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
I immediately I was like, zach'sin he loves it. Hey,
you joke.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
I thought, I'm a diehard sports fan. This time of
year is rough for sports fan, but WNBA is one
of the few things we got.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
I'm a Dallas Wings supporter. Oh, I had no idea. Yeah,
I'm dead. Seriously, I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
I did not mean to talk about your sport. But
what's happening in the WNBA is just it is laugh
out loud funny.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
But it's laugh out loud funny because it is a dressing.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
One of the biggest absurdities being pushed by the left
in a generation, and that is that you can let
men play in women's sports because they're just the same
as long as those men think they're women.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
So how is this coming to a head? Ah? God,
I love this story. I'm sure you've heard.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
By now, two former NBA players have announced their eligibility
for the w NBA draft. Enis Freedom that Canter and
Royce Smith. These two men are heroes for women athletes
around the world. They are they We should we should
make it. We should have a statue. We should make

(57:43):
a statue of Royce Smith and Eniskanter with their wigs on,
because now they identify as women because they want to
play in the WNBA. And apparently the WNBA doesn't really
have a policy about this.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Or their policy is just a little loosey goosey.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
The issue seems to be that if you want to
play in the WNBA, you just have to say.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
You are a woman.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yep, you just have to say it, and then bang
you get to play. Well maybe not now, Royce White.
I'm not going to pretend to know who Royce White
was before this. Is he a famous WNBA? Is he
a famous NBA player? Have you ever heard of him?
I've never heard of him.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
You had a cup of coffee in the NBA after
having a being like a mid to late first round
pick a couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah, but he would absolutely be the best WNBA player
in the league. There's no doubt in my mind. So
Roy Smith just posted a picture of himself in a
wig with this. It came, y'all my first wig tomorrow
I tested on the court.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
This is my feminine era glow up.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Did I slay? If y'all vote yes, Queen, you are
trying toobic. I really don't understand all the hatred. I
just want to play some hoops with my fellow ladies.
Royce White for US Senate Minnesota, twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
WNBA let her play. That's his post of him wearing
a wing. Now, what's interesting is.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
That the WNBA got caught flat footed. They are now Actually,
they sent out a memo. They sent out a memo,
and the memo said the following. We recognize that this
is a complex and nuanced topic, and we will continue
to have the important conversations with all of you and

(59:39):
the Players Association in the weeks and months ahead. The
league will always approach the topic thoughtfully, respectfully, and in
alignment with the long standing values of our league. Let's
see our player eligibility Hang on one second, our oh,
come on. Our player eligibility rules are collectively bargained, preserving

(01:00:00):
the integrity of our game and ensuring fair competition will
always remain among the Leeds' highest priorities. Well, if they
don't let Enis Canter in and Royce White in, obviously
that's not fair, that's not protecting integrity. So they're actually
going to have a meeting to figure out what a

(01:00:21):
woman is. They're going to have to review what a
woman is for the purposes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Of league eligibility.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
These meetings should be live streamed, yes they should, but
they will not be.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
They will not.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
The problem is is that if Royce White and Enis
Canter Freedom, Enis Freedom Canter get into the WNBA, they
will be so absolutely dominating that it will just encourage
other men who want to play professional basketball at some
level to announce their Well, they're now women. All you
have to say is you're a woman. Because we've told

(01:01:00):
the women, actual women, that if we are upset that
a dude wearing a dress walks into our bathroom, we're transphobic.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
It doesn't matter that he has a full beard.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Now as long as he says he's a woman, we
are supposed to just accept it, shut.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Up and sit down.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
So now you have the real risk of an actual
woman being displaced on a WNBA team by a dude
who says he's a woman. The absurdity of this entire
situation has now come to a full head. I'm here
for it. I'm absolutely here for it. I can't wait

(01:01:39):
to see how this turns out. I cannot wait, because
if you're going to do it on merit, then you
have to do it on merit. But if you're not
going to do it on merit, then well then you're
not really inclusive. And all of this stuff about, you know,
the nonsensical case of men belonging in women's sports is

(01:02:00):
finally laid to rest. I can't wait to see what
they do. My favorite two texts about this. The first
text is my absolute favorite. The WNBA is what the
entire country would be like. It's run by white liberal women.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
But the best one is this one. In short, this
is not a women's sports league. It's a joyless, angry, violent,
race obsessed, NonStop twenty eighteen Oberlin struggle session, filled with
entitled lunatics, unable to survive without someone else picking up
the bill. They whine when they don't get attention, and
wind ten times harder when they do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
They whind hardest.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
About the problematic quote New fans who quadrupled their pay
tripled their TV audiences ten times to their franchise valuations,
got them charter jets, and staved off their inevitable bankruptcy
for ten years or so. I sincerely hope they achieved
their dream of exercising themselves of Caitlin Clark and all
those dreaded New fans and returned to their beloved paradise

(01:03:04):
lost of half empty thousand seed high school gyms attended
by girl fight fetishists with giveaway tickets printed on subway
sandwich receipts. I mean that kind of lays it out, Mandy.
I hope these two she males will call them females.
Thank you, they said they were women. Did you not

(01:03:26):
learn by now that if you do not call them women,
refer to them by she and hert you are transphobic.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
In their first game, they'll score ninety points. Correct? Correct?
Lucy goosey glad Mandy is back.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
I missed her folksiness. I am nothing if not folksy.
Royce White says this, the white is their all caps.
This is one of the most sensible stances he's ever taken.
It's Royce White, as you're expert on everything Iowa State sports,
so I can recap all the weird stuff Royce has
done since college.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
He started by refusing to fly to games. He had
to be driven.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
I did not know that, so he did the old
uh who was, oh my gosh, the guy who gave
out the turkey legs. Madden, John Madden. He John maddened it.
He wanted his own bus to take care of that.
How the Harlem Globetrotter's done their version of this, No,
but they should. As a sixty two year old former

(01:04:23):
high school basketball player, I can't wait ten to the
WNBA draft and.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
I have the boobs to act the part. I will
take your word for that, sir, Army madam.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Now that you're a woman, so you can play in
the WNBA, Mandy, I was at Kathy Ingelbert's WNBA Commissioner's
wedding and she married my best man. She has turned
out to be a poor leader by not nipping glaring
issues in the bud. She dropped the basketball, Yes, she
most certainly did, and now she has a ginormous mess

(01:04:57):
and all the women are on the same cycle, so
that's only going to get worse. I burst out laughing
when I saw the w n b A. It was
it was hilarious. Man, did you see the hit on
Sophie Cunningham this weekend summer calling for assault charges?

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
This is the other big problem.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
And since Zach is our resident w NBA expert, I'm
gonna bring him into this since he's now an avowed
fan of the Dallas Wings.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
I didn't even know they were.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
A team, But okay, doing that anyway, we have seen
some pretty gnarly like hits in the w n B
A where the foul on it was a flagrant fowl.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
The what's her name? Djana's yea dj A Carrington. Okay,
so she's.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
Named after a condiment, Djona. Uh just bas wasn't even
playing the ball, had a closed fist while she closedlined
Sophie coming Cunningham. It was going in for a layup.
I have a theory about why it seems like there
are more egregious fouls like that in the NBA because
they know they're not gonna, like have to deal with

(01:06:08):
that person later. I feel like in the NBA there's
the inherent threat that if you clock me in the
face like that, you're gonna have to deal with me later.
But in the WNBA, it's like one and done, like
there's no follow up.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
I would say, I don't know if it's much.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
I think it's a It's become a big talking point
in the WNBA unlike the NBA because it's surprising, and
then you have it happening a lot to like Caitlin Clarker,
Sophie cunning have these players that have kind of transcended
the sport in terms of their notoriety or popularity. But
like NBA, you know Yokichho almost end of Demand's career,

(01:06:42):
like Berline killed him on Miami Heat when he took
him out from behind. You of course have the Draymond
Green stuff where he's like choked out Rudy Gobert and
like you know, of course famously punched Jordan Poole in
the face. So I feel like, you know, you do
have these things in the NBA, they just people move
on from them quicker or they don't leave the like

(01:07:04):
sports conversation realm. Whereas Sophie Cunningham already broke through into
general news and politics.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
We're all already talking about her. It doesn't hurt this.
Sophie Cunningham is hot.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Yeah, I mean it's helpful that she is hot and
that she's sort of become the face of this and
for honestly, well, I mean, she plays a role on
the team. She's her enforcer. I do know that about her.
She's not afraid to throw elbows, not at all. By
the way, she also was kicked out of a game
for a similar flagrant fowl, So you know the part

(01:07:37):
the reason that particular fowl became such a big deal
as the woman who was thrown out immediately, I guess
from the locker room tweeted out hashtag white privilege. Okay, yeah, okay,
it's ridiculous. I do want to throw one more thing
in here. This is actually a very sticky wicket for
the WNBA for one big reason. Number one is there

(01:07:58):
are a crap ton of lesbians who played by basketball
in the WNBA. I would imagine that percentage wise, that
lesbians are over represented in the WNBA to an extent
that they are not over represented in any other industry.
And because the transgender movement has attached itself to the

(01:08:19):
LGB movement in an effort to gain this similar acceptance.
Even though I believe that turning kids into another gender
is simply changing the sex of.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Gay kids, that would grow up to be gay. So
there's this.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
Schism happening right now between the LGB and the T
in LGBT plus and so this is a huge problem
because they have a really big lesbian contingent that are
all about the LGBTQ all that crap, and so now
they have to figure out how to thread this needle.
I for one, would like to know, Mandy, if you're

(01:08:57):
not a black lesbian, it's open season on you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
I mean in.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
General, because I am not a black lesbian. I don't
want to think it's open season oh you mean? Oh,
you mean oh on the basketball court. As I am
a horrifically bad basketball player, I will never have to
to find that out because I cannot play basketball, much
to the chagrin of my middle school coaches and my
high school coaches, who saw a kid who was five

(01:09:22):
to ten in the seventh grade and thought we got one. No,
they did not have one. They did not never even
made it out of the first day. I've got a
story coming up next in the next hour. I've got
two things, you know what. We spent the first part
of the show complaining about how things have gotten crappy,
like products let's spend the last hour of the show

(01:09:44):
doing three things. Number One, we're going to play name
that tune with the new Mandy Connell intro that you
will hear at the beginning of the next hour if
you can name that to you, and we'll do that first.
Then you've all attended a celebration of life, right, I mean,
when someone passes away, you go. We're not gonna have
a funeral, We're gonna have a celebration of life. I

(01:10:04):
got a celebration of life for you to attend. I'm
thinking about going. And then at two thirty, my friend
Jonathan Flora is gonna join me because coincidentally, as I
had several experiences on the cruise ship that I knew
I was going to talk about when I got back,
Jonathan Flora happened to write a column about that very
same thing. We'll talk to him at two thirty. It's
gonna be a positive hour coming up next on a

(01:10:32):
radio show that I will never forgive him for. I've
known Greg since college. We have remained good friends since then,
and Greg has the most eclectic taste in music I've
ever I've ever of anyone I've ever met, and so
when I was looking for a new theme song, I
sent him a text. I said, dude, I need a
new theme song. What you got hit me up? And
he said, well, what are you looking for? And I

(01:10:53):
gave him a whole list of things. And finally you
just said just check out this this playlist, And this
song was on his playlist. So we'll see if anybody
gets it. Five sixty six nine. Now, as we move
on to what is my favorite story of twenty twenty
six so far, There is a celebration of life on
August fifteenth. Celebration of life is for a man named

(01:11:17):
Kendall Fitzgerald. There are flyers put up around the neighborhood
around Cheesman Park announcing that you can come to a
celebration of life Saturday, August fifteenth, meet your neighbors, All
cool people welcome, live entertainment, snacks.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
Bubbles, levity, joy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
It's happening from five to nine pm. High class. It
says on the flyer. The kicker is that Kendall Fitzgerald
is not dead. He is having his own celebration of life.
Kendall Fitzgerald has just come through an extremely challenging illness.
He had a condition called idiot hathic intracranial hypertension, which

(01:12:03):
causes increased pressure and fluid around the brain. He's been
dealing with it for over a year. The condition affected
his ability to walk, breathe, and see, which obviously put
a damper on his brand new life in Denver, because see,
he just moved here.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
But he's finally through that battle. He's ready to meet.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
And great and he wants everybody to come to a
celebration of life that he advertises that will be both
respectful and demure. That's a toss back to a great
internet meme. I actually love this. I love the entire concept.
Westward reached out to him and spoke to Kendall Fitzgerald,
and this is the quote he said, I don't have

(01:12:43):
to focus on just surviving because now I can. It
doesn't sound like an Amsterdam nightclub in my brain. I'm
just gonna do what I always do. But if people
want to show up and sit with me, because I'm
newer to Denver and Colorado altogether, i gotta tarp in
case the grass is wet. I've got a small speaker.
I'm going to frolic. How do you not want to
go frolic with this guy. I want to go frolic

(01:13:04):
with him. So then it goes on to talk about
he just grew up in Middle America and ready to
move around. He just sounds like a super interesting guy.
And around November his head started to feel funny, his
hands and feet started to numb. By January he had
some testing. Doctors found that his spinal fluid was off

(01:13:25):
the charts, leading to a manual lowering.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
I don't even know what that is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
Then he developed something similar to wobbly cat syndrome, leading
him to Nita Walker. This is a young man, by
the way, Nobody knew what was going on, but finally
a minimally invasive brain surgery was scheduled for the beginning
of July. Fitzgerald would have a stint put in to
keep one of the major veins in the brain open
and lower the pressure and fluid around his brain.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
And it worked.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
It worked, So now he's having a celebration of life.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
So what I love.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
About this is that too often we have wonderful celebrations
of life for people after they've died. And yes, these
things are for the living, they are not for the dead.
But wouldn't it be cool if it dead. We're there
not dead, of course. I mean, yeah, I don't want to.
I don't want to like taxidermy someone and put him
in the corner. That's not what I'm looking for here.
I got this message from Sheila, who reads the blog.

(01:14:27):
She's a subscriber at mandyblog dot com, so she gets
in in the morning before the show starts. She said, Mandy,
I wish I could have held my husband's celebration of
life when he was alive. Sadly, he passed away last
October at the young age of sixty nine. He had
prostate cancer that metastasized into his bones and bone marrow.
His last few months were so painful for him, and

(01:14:49):
it was heart wrenching for me to see him in
so much pain. I had a celebration of life for
him that included about one hundred and sixty of his
closest friends and family.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
I'll put together picture boards.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
That he would have loved to look at and remember
who he was with, where he was, and the story
that went along with every photo.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
So many memories.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
There was food and drink, stories to tell, bagpipes, and
a lot of tears. I suggest to everyone how the
celebration of life for the living, look at pictures, print pictures,
talk about the old and good times. Everyone made the
comment that he would have loved that party, and it
was exactly how we would have thrown it if he
had planned it himself. Thank you, Sheila. First of all, Sheila,

(01:15:30):
I'm terribly sorry about your loss. That's terrible, but I
get it. When my dad died, we were told after
he passed away by my stepmother that we were not
having a funeral. Well, my dad was a very very
well known man in our hometown. People started calling, when's
the funeral? Where's the funeral? So we decided to just

(01:15:51):
have a quote celebration of life that we slapped together
at the last second.

Speaker 5 (01:15:56):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
It ended up being being.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Absolutely phenomenal because nothing had been planned, and I became
the default MC because this is what I do for
a living. I just asked people to come up and
tell stories about my dad. Now, first of all, some
of these people I had never met, so you don't
think about this as an adult child who's moved away
from home. Like so much of your parents' friend group,

(01:16:21):
you don't even know them. So these people were getting
up and they told the funniest stories about my dad
stories I had never heard. It was fantastic and I
gotta tell you, my dad would.

Speaker 5 (01:16:34):
Have loved it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
He absolutely would have loved it, just loved it. So yeah,
I'm kind of I'm kind of like this, would it
be Would it be a vanity project? If I had
a celebration of life for Mandy Coddle, like in the
next six months?

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
Would that be a weird Zach? Do you think that
would be weird?

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
Would you guys come, would you listeners come to the
celebration of life?

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:16:57):
The only weird part is is that instead of like
me being up front in a coffin, I would just
be sitting up there basking in the globe. I'm so
lying this would make me so wildly uncomfortable. I would
not do this for myself. However, my husband, you probably
love it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
I just don't like.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
I don't want to hear a bunch of people say
nice things about me. It's weird and it makes me uncomfortable.
Is but I wasn't listening close enough because I thought
it was going to be your new song. That is
the new song We're we Do. I could not get
the other song, Redone it just got really it is

(01:17:36):
not I love rock and roll by Jone Jet, but
the Black Keys comment made me laugh because this band
that made the song is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
Let's just say.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
My friend Greg, who helped me find the song, was like, yeah,
they are this country's answer to the Black Keys. I
don't see it, but it's funny that you put that
in there. So there you go. A lot of you
responding to the celebration of life that a man named
Kendall Fitzgerald is throwing for himself.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
He recovered from a serious illness.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
He doesn't know a lot of people in Denver, so
he's hanging up flyers in the Chieman Park neighborhood asking
people if they want to come to his celebration of life,
not celebration of Kendall, celebration of life. He says, he's
going to be frolicking. It's all happening August fifteenth, from
five to nine pm. This person said, Mandy, twenty years ago,
a good friend of mine had a celebration of life

(01:18:25):
because he wanted to see his friends one last time
with a big party before his pancreatic cancer took him.
It was a great event. Many friends, we told stories,
visited with him and enjoyed the day. Friends and family
came for all over the country one last time to
see him. When he passed. There's a small graveside service
that mostly locals came to. This is what I will

(01:18:46):
do if I know about my demise beforehand, have one.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
Hell of a party.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
Yes, yes, indeed, I'm actually thinking about seeing if my
mom wants to do this. Because my mom has decided
she doesn't want a funeral, she wants to donate her
body to science. I'm not even kidding you guys that
are going with us on the adventure, On the Mandy
Cottle Adventure this fall, we'll get to meet my mom
and that will not surprise you.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
She's like, I'm not gonna eat it anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
Maybe they could learn something from studying my old body.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
Celebration of life.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Might be appropriate for someone who was basically dead and
is alive again from a serious illness, like your Cheeseman
Parkay exactly, Mandy. In Puerto Rico, they do funerals right,
with a procession of cars and so much loud music
that Saint Peter can hear it. We were in Puerto
Rico a couple of years ago and they have these
buses that there was a big festival going on, so

(01:19:41):
there was all these buses that were going down to
provide transportation. But you know how we have like a
normal line of yellow buses or whatever that are doing this, Zach.
Each one of these buses is completely covered in lights,
and they're not like static lights, they're flashing lights.

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
There's all kinds of decorative lights.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
And then they all have these giant speakers that are
all playing like Latin music at full blast. It's enough
to send you into an epileptic fit. I do not
like that. I'm just gonna say, like, there's times when
things are just loud for the sake of being loud
that I'm anti loud for the sake of being loud,
and that felt loud for the sake of being loud.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
But I do appreciate a festive.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Funeral like the ones they have in New Orleans where
they do the walk down the street playing music, Mandy, respectfully,
I'm sure you could get hundreds of people that would
stand up and call you a bitch, perhaps if that'd
make you more comfortable. Shoot, I bet even Kyle Clark
and Jared Polus would attend and take the mic. I
don't think that either of them would stand up and

(01:20:44):
say nasty things about me.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
You know, they wouldn't. They wouldn't take the time out
of their day.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
Mandy, an acquaintance of mine in Orange County, went to
his own wake. He had terminal cancer and put himself
on hospice. He sent out texts to all of his
friends and colleagues saying to meet at a bar in
Newport Speach to say goodbye. He arrived by ambulance, hung
out for a bit, then drank a concoction while they're
and drifted off peacefully on his own terms. That's a

(01:21:11):
little bit different than what I'm talking about. That's like
the great sendoff, Mandy. My wife has donated her body
to science as well. I really think that's an honorable thing. Yeah, yeah,
you know, my sister not as accepting of it as
I am, to which I say, uh, what are you
gonna do with the body?

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
I'm not taking it, you know. In college.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
By the way, my brother did suggest taxidermy for my mother.
That's what kind of family we have. He suggested it
to my mother. Now, Mom, we're just gonna stuff you
and put you in the corner. Hi Mandy, no disrespect,
but that's kind of presumptuous of your mother wanting to
donate her body to science. Science doesn't want it. Well,
now I know that's not what I did. I say
science didn't want it, or maybe I don't know. Science

(01:21:59):
can decide, Manny. In college, we had a week for
someone every weekend. None of us is Catholic, none of
us was dead. We also had bachelor parties for no reason.
That actually sounds kind of fun, like just pickups. What
if what if you had like a much older friend
and you took her out as the bachelorette for a

(01:22:19):
bachelorette party. Well, I'm doing it when we get back.
How much opportunity is wasted in our society now because
we are on our phones. I had the best conversations
on the cruise ship because no one had their phones.
And coincidentally, my friend Jonathan Flora wrote a column about

(01:22:41):
that very same thing, or we're going to talk about
it next. I am an unabashed lover of cruises or
like little tasting menus of destinations that you can go
back to later. You can find the places you'd like
to revisit and not go back to the places you don't.
But one of the things I love about cruise ships

(01:23:03):
is that you're in close quarters with a lot of
other people. And when you are trying to grab breakfast
at the buffet before excursion day and it's a madhouse,
you will look for any two seats any port in
the storm. You will sit down next to people you
do not know, and inevitably you'll strike up a conversation.
And this happened over and over and over again on
the ship, and I started to realize that one of

(01:23:24):
the reasons it happened over and over and over again
on the ship is because a lot of people don't
buy the Wi Fi package, so they don't have their phones.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
So here you are just sitting You may have.

Speaker 1 (01:23:34):
Your phone because you used to take pictures of the
random whale that's going to come off here, but you're
not on your phone.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
And what ends up happening is you start chatting with
the people around you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
I talk to people from Britain, I talked to people
from Wales, and I talk to people from Ireland.

Speaker 2 (01:23:46):
I talked to two incredible women from Iran.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
Who I asked, I said, oh, do you still have
family in Iran? And that started an entire conversation where
they went on and on and on about how grateful
they were to the United States in Israel for trying
to destroy the regime which had made them flee their
home country many many years prior. But when you talk
to people, you find out interesting stories and things.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
That they love. And I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
And I had decided to talk about this when I
got back, about the fact that we are so used
to picking up our phones and moments of boredom that
we no longer have these random conversations with people.

Speaker 2 (01:24:24):
And then my friend Jonathan Flora.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
Who's got a substack, happened to write a column on
exactly that thing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
So my friend Jonathan Flora is joining us to talk
about it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
But I got to talk about the story of how
you met my husband first, Jonathan, because he is like you,
he will talk to everyone and real quickly I met
Jonathan's husband, Deborah, who you guys of course know because
she fills in for me and she's my show partner
on the Mandy and deb Show. I met Deborah at
an event and I just I loved her.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
I went home and.

Speaker 1 (01:24:57):
Told my husband, I said, I met this woman and
I I want to be your friend?

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
How do you even do that as an adult?

Speaker 4 (01:25:02):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
Do you just like doing the kids playground?

Speaker 4 (01:25:04):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Will you be my friend?

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
I just I was super awkward, and then I realized
I lost her card. So now not only have I
met this woman I want to be friends with, I've
lost her card. Big disaster. I'm like, ah, whatever, okay, fine.
Fast forward like two weeks later, Chuck and I are
having breakfast at a place that we have breakfast out
a lot, and in walks a guy with an Ohio
University shirt on, and Chuck gives him a nod. Ohio

(01:25:26):
University fans all must connect when they see each other
in public. They must.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
It's in the charter of the school.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
You must say hello to other bobcats. So as we
were getting ready to leave, Chuck said, I'm going to
go talk to the guy in the OU shirt. I said, fine,
I'm going.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
To the truck.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
I walk out, I get in the truck. Because this
is a regular occurrence, it could be ours.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
I don't know how long it's going to take.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
Chuck comes out to the truck and goes, hey, remember
that woman you met the other night.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
I was like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:51):
He goes that's her husband. So I leap out of
the truck and I run in and I'm like, oh
my god, I love your wife. Please tell me how
to get in touch with her. But that was Jonathan,
and that came about because my husband struck up a
conversation with someone who I don't Ohio University shirt, something
Jonathan Flora does as well, and that is what she
wrote this column about. What inspired this column at this moment, Jonathan, Well,

(01:26:14):
you know.

Speaker 6 (01:26:15):
It's just because I do this all the time, and
that's a great example what Chuck did. In fact, as
I was thinking today, I think I know what my
next column is. I've got a few that are percolating
and it's going to be Do you ever notice how
T shirts.

Speaker 11 (01:26:26):
Are history books?

Speaker 5 (01:26:28):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (01:26:28):
Yeah, T shirt has a story behind it. It tells something.
It's a it's a personality sign of who I am,
what I like like. One of the stories I also
mentioned in that column was I'm in a bar in
Nashville and I've got mcguffee lane on Probably twelve people
have heard of McGuffey.

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):
Lane outside of Ohio.

Speaker 6 (01:26:47):
They were Ohio midway in Indiana, and this person talks
to me. We start talking and I go, yeah, I've
got a buddy of mine back in Colorado that he
actually lived in Athens.

Speaker 11 (01:26:59):
What's just Chuck?

Speaker 6 (01:27:01):
Chuck used to work for me back in the days.
So the rule got real small, real pricks. Of course,
we had to take a selfie and send.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
It to us.

Speaker 11 (01:27:10):
But you know, to me, it's something that's going on
in society.

Speaker 6 (01:27:13):
Like you said, we're buried in our palm of our
hand with that apparatus.

Speaker 11 (01:27:17):
Called a phone. People. I mean, people will walk into
other people with that phone, and there are so many
stories that we're missing.

Speaker 6 (01:27:26):
If you will just stand up and just say hey,
you know, and next thing you know, you're chatting about something.
It could be thirty seconds to talk about nothing. It
could be that story that I've shared a million times
in my son when he was a little weird in
Walmart and this guy was talking to me. I noticed
this wicked gash scar across his hand.

Speaker 11 (01:27:44):
And I have no problem asking anybody anything.

Speaker 6 (01:27:46):
How'd you get that Vietnam sixty eight walking point and
VA came out machety. I grabbed it, pulled it aside,
and shot him with my sidearm. I looked down at
Benjamin who's like six ago. Dude, we're standing next to it.
I look back up.

Speaker 11 (01:28:01):
The guy's tear them out, Yeah, crying. So you never
know what.

Speaker 6 (01:28:05):
Somebody's carrying with them, what kind of story they've got
to tell. But I thought you when you said Chuck
had be gone for hours. My wife knows that too.
She can go to the restroom, she comes out. I
know a three generations where they're going, they were married
before this woman, and where their kids are. I mean,
it's easy to do.

Speaker 1 (01:28:23):
But you know, here's the thing, Jonathan, I think that
so many people are afraid of being invasive. They're afraid
of asking the wrong question, they're afraid of saying the
wrong thing. And to that, I just respond, people love
to talk about themselves, and if you go in and
you are intellectually curiosity curious about other people. We've had

(01:28:46):
this British couple on the cruise ship, so we're just
chatting back and forth. It's a pleasant and this guy
tells and this may have been like a soft hit
on us, I don't know, but he's like.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
Yeah, my brother in law.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
Told me I should get a shirt with an ups down.

Speaker 2 (01:29:00):
Pineapple and I got it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
But he was wearing it under hit because that's like
the code for swingers. And he was very proud to
show us his pineapple shirt. He was wearing it for
that one day to take a picture off the ship
to send to his brother in law, who told him
she should do this. But it was just a really
funny story, and it told me a lot about his
brother in law, who sounded like a cheeky monkey, you know.

(01:29:23):
And his wife was just eye rolling the entire time.
And it was just those funny, little stupid moments that
are so insignificant but greatly increase your happiness in life,
you know what I mean, Just knowing that there's other
people out there that are funny and kind, and you
can have those very quick interactions and you walk away

(01:29:45):
in a better mood because of it.

Speaker 11 (01:29:47):
Absolutely, and this as much for you as it can
be for them.

Speaker 6 (01:29:50):
And often life presents the unexpected story like the one
I was talking about. There was this guy in the
airport and just something seeing something and me it just
I mean, it wasn't like he's wearing a shirt or
a hat or did some funny just something compelled me
to want to go over. So I go and stand
next to him. And try not to be too creepy,
al right, like, okay, you know, I don't have my

(01:30:12):
upside down pineapple shirt on, you know, whatever it might be.
And he starts telling me he's on the way to
San Antonio the Bury, his son was just committed suicide.

Speaker 11 (01:30:24):
I just let him.

Speaker 6 (01:30:25):
Talk and talk and all I could do was not
And at the end he actually, you know, gave me
a kind of a hug and said thanks, I really
needed that. And I go, dude, I'll just be thinking
about you and praying about you. And so it's a
therapy session for like five minutes. And there's other times
where just something funny happens. They're either wearing something or
off cracking joke. Worst thing that can happen. They give

(01:30:46):
you the stink guy and.

Speaker 11 (01:30:47):
You walk away exactly and then you know what, how'd
you like to be his wife? Yeah, you know, the
bigger issue than just this moment right now.

Speaker 6 (01:30:54):
But most people, there's this great palm I forget by
the guy. But Walt Garrison was their running back to
the Dallas Cowboys back in the sixties, tough as nail guy,
and he does this pluem called people are Funny Critters.
And if you watch that, it's like about a minute
and ten seconds long. He recites the entire plumb I go,

(01:31:15):
that's humanity right there. He covered like every kind of
spectacle and spectrum of.

Speaker 11 (01:31:21):
Who we are.

Speaker 6 (01:31:22):
And people are are funny critters and as writers, you know,
they're a great source of material.

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
But ultimately, Jonathan, one of the problems I think we
have is that we are so physically disconnected from one
another that we've forgotten how to be decent people because
we're projecting that everyone else is a horrible person, that
everyone else is a jerk, that everyone else is an
a hole. And when you go into the world expecting

(01:31:48):
that and then you get kindness back, you get a
guy who just wanders over to you in your worst
moment and asks if you're okay, it goes a long
way to restoring your faith in humanity. Overall, every place
an interaction, it's like a little little boost for our engine,
you know what I meant, It's a little more gas
in the tank of humanity. And I think that now

(01:32:08):
that we all have our phones, we're missing all of
these funny, incidental comments, stories, whatever, that we would otherwise
be having. And I don't know, other than just saying
get off your damn phone, which you do pretty well
in this in this column. I don't know what else
to do unless we just are become those people that

(01:32:29):
start conversations with everyone even if they're on their phone.

Speaker 4 (01:32:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:32:33):
Absolutely, I've done this before in elevators whatever. Two people
on phones, they probably don't know each other, and I'm like, might.

Speaker 11 (01:32:39):
Just talk to each other instead of texting? You get
a little chuckle next to you know, we're talking. Yeah,
I agree with you.

Speaker 6 (01:32:47):
You know, whether people are in a bad mood or
they're just like I don't want to be bothered, how
to want to bother somebody else?

Speaker 11 (01:32:53):
Some people are waiting to get bothered.

Speaker 4 (01:32:54):
You know. With that.

Speaker 6 (01:32:55):
But the generation of our children and even the generation
before that, they don't even know how to talk to
their friends in person, let.

Speaker 11 (01:33:02):
Alone a stranger.

Speaker 6 (01:33:03):
That art form is gone, and we just need to
try to find a way to bring that back. And
that's what I love what you and Devora do on
your show, your acts of Kindness. I wave to people
now on the freeway because of you, guys.

Speaker 11 (01:33:18):
I learned that a long time ago.

Speaker 6 (01:33:19):
There's times you just wanted to chase that person down
and you'll you'll risk getting in a wreck.

Speaker 11 (01:33:24):
So you can flip them off or do whatever. By
the time I go, what a jerk do that? I'm
over it.

Speaker 4 (01:33:30):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (01:33:31):
And then when you let somebody else would be reasy. Okay,
you should have emerged way back there. Whatever you wave,
you see, they wave back.

Speaker 11 (01:33:37):
Mife's good. Just put a little bit more out there.

Speaker 1 (01:33:40):
You brought up younger generations. I read an article yesterday
actually on the way home that they are now. I'm
trying not to laugh about this, because it really is
kind of a tragic situation that we're this is necessary.
There are no classes for gen Z to teach them
to have a telephone conversation because they don't have telephone
conversationations and they're so freaked out by the concept of

(01:34:04):
talking to someone that they don't know on the phone.

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
You want to know one of the.

Speaker 1 (01:34:09):
Reasons we have such an anxious generation, as Jonathan Hate
so aptly named this generation, because they don't have enough
human interaction, and I mean real face to face human
interaction where you begin to understand a couple of things.
Number One, most people are pretty dang good and pretty
cool and pretty happy to have a conversation with you.
And number two, you might not be for everyone, and

(01:34:32):
that's okay, you know. To your point, it's like, you know,
if you're gonna get cursed out by someone who because
you're kind to them, you're not their kind of person,
and that's okay.

Speaker 6 (01:34:41):
But I'm probably never going to see him again the
rest of my life, exactly, you know, exactly.

Speaker 11 (01:34:45):
But you brought up a great point. We had.

Speaker 6 (01:34:47):
One of our kids was talking and there's something going
on with relationship and we're like.

Speaker 11 (01:34:52):
Well, you just need to talk to him, because I
do will be text every morning because that's not poking.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
Correct.

Speaker 6 (01:34:57):
They don't get the concept that next thing is not
it's communicating, but it's not talking. And then there's nothing
like in person talking to besides face timing.

Speaker 1 (01:35:07):
Well, yes, I mean in person talking is bar superior
as a means of getting along. I just love the column,
Jonathan Wright. How often are you publishing?

Speaker 11 (01:35:15):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
What are you writing every week?

Speaker 6 (01:35:17):
I get about I get it maybe a couple out
a week. Right now, I'm neck deep in our nine
to eleven special that I can't wait for devor Night
to talk to you about novel nine to eleven but
so it slowed me down a little bit. But I'm
not pretty weekly or maybe sometimes twice a week.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
Well, I will share those because Jonathan, unlike me, he
writes interesting and fun stuff, not just you know, stuff
that will make your head explode and your blood boil.
You can find his subject.

Speaker 11 (01:35:42):
The WNBA's doing that to me.

Speaker 6 (01:35:44):
Now, I've listened to your last hour say if they
want to be on the show today, Well, I can't
wait to talk about this.

Speaker 4 (01:35:50):
I want to.

Speaker 11 (01:35:51):
Add something to your thing.

Speaker 6 (01:35:52):
Though.

Speaker 11 (01:35:52):
We're talking about guys coming in.

Speaker 6 (01:35:54):
Yeah, if you're in the G League, which is the
next level to the NBA, average salaries for the year,
average salary to WNBA Now, because of Kate Lenclark five
hundred thousand dollars this year, you.

Speaker 11 (01:36:07):
Think people are gonna men are going to jump from
the G League?

Speaker 6 (01:36:09):
Did the WNBA make ten times what they're making right now?
If that door gets open and you're watching the WNBA
destroy themselves in real time right in front of us,
did you sorry I jump in your como?

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
No, And we were talking about in the last hour
of people missed it. And I've got a great column
by my friend David Strom on the blog today at
mandyblog dot com about it. No, the WNBA is exactly
what happens when women run everything. I hate to say it,
but you got a bunch of like angry people who
are down with the patriarchy and white women or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:36:42):
I can't even they are.

Speaker 1 (01:36:43):
They're consuming themselves and it's sad because women have fought
so long to have this opportunity. They finally have an
opportunity to make decent money. The league is healthier than
it's been and they're going to destroy it because they're
all self interested jerks.

Speaker 2 (01:36:58):
But anyway, Jonathan or good to see you again, my friend.
I'll see you soon.

Speaker 11 (01:37:02):
Tell your wife I.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
Still love her as which as that first time I
met her. All right, Jonathan, I'll talk to you later.

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):
Right, all right, bye, my friend.

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
I have to clarify something I said earlier in the show.
I meant to do this right out of the break
and I forgot. Chuck wanted me to let you guys
know he does not want a celebration of life in
his honor while he is there, He's like, that made
me sound really conceited. I'm like, you wouldn't like to
sit around and hear stories with me. He's like, Nope,
don't want to do it. So I want to clarify.
I thought he would like it. He loves to tell
stories with his friends. Just come to dinner with him.

(01:37:33):
You'll hear them all. Chad Bauer with an AR has
walked in the studio. That is b O w R
corrects the only ar and Chad's arsenal at work true.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Anyway, Chad, let's jump into it. We got We're not
that far away.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
I know it's time for the most exciting segment all
the radio.

Speaker 5 (01:37:53):
Of its guy.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
What was that? A grizzled old what was that?

Speaker 8 (01:38:01):
I'm just trying to do it different every time. Sometimes
they work, sometimes they don't.

Speaker 3 (01:38:05):
I got like a trailer voice, you know, like a
world where in a world?

Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
Anyway?

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
Anyway, okay, so what is our word of the day, please.

Speaker 3 (01:38:19):
Word of the day today is pedagogical.

Speaker 1 (01:38:23):
Pedagogical and that means the how do.

Speaker 5 (01:38:27):
I speaking in grammar right now?

Speaker 1 (01:38:30):
Pedagogical is like the actual foundation of a subject or
I cannot think of how in the world to describe this.

Speaker 2 (01:38:38):
It doesn't have to do with feet, no, it has
to do with education.

Speaker 3 (01:38:43):
It is a formal word used to describe things that
are of or related to teachers or education.

Speaker 2 (01:38:50):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:38:50):
Okay, I just couldn't figure out how to make that word.

Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
I knew what it was.

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):
We skip, dad joke. I'm sorry about that. What is
dad Joke of the day?

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
Dad Joke of the day. I'm rusty.

Speaker 3 (01:38:59):
I was hoping you would bail me out on the
order here dad joke of the day to day?

Speaker 2 (01:39:03):
Why did the bicycle collapse? Why did the bicycle collapse?
I don't know. It was too tired.

Speaker 1 (01:39:14):
Oh wow wowie h yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
Yeah, anyway, whatever's next? Saturn't even oh?

Speaker 1 (01:39:24):
Trivia question of the day? I actually know this one.
I love this one. What classic novel begins with the
opening line it was.

Speaker 2 (01:39:31):
The best of times, it was the worst of times.

Speaker 3 (01:39:35):
I think I know this one too, tell Tale of
Two Cities dickens right?

Speaker 2 (01:39:40):
Oh Am? I wrong? No, two are stuck together.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
So I flipped it over and I was like, that
makes no sense at all, because the answers on, hang on,
answers on the back, and they're really stuck together. Hang on,
We'll never know a Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickinson's
eighteen fifty nine historical novel about the French Revolution, but
that they have a period at the end, and that
is incorrect. That first line is a paragraph with no periods.

Speaker 5 (01:40:04):
There should be.

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
Said there should be because there should be more.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
But I had to memorize that for one of my
classes in college, just the first paragraph.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
But I don't remember it. I wish I did.

Speaker 1 (01:40:14):
I should go back and review two. Thank you, and
our Jeopardy category, please, sir.

Speaker 3 (01:40:20):
Jeopardy category today is classic television.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Classic television. I feel good about this.

Speaker 3 (01:40:26):
I've been on a cold streak, so I tried to
hit one down the fairwell.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
Okay, they were both old. Sorry, oh oh yeah, I'll
say this. I knew all these, so you know, no
no ages in here.

Speaker 3 (01:40:38):
Will Smith lived with his aunt and uncle in a posh.

Speaker 2 (01:40:41):
What is the Fresh Prince of bel Air? That is correct?

Speaker 1 (01:40:45):
That's a class that was like, I.

Speaker 2 (01:40:49):
Didn't make the category. Take it up at the CBS
pop taking my little Margie. Okay, I'm taking my favorite Martian.

Speaker 5 (01:40:55):
Okay, how about this white right?

Speaker 2 (01:40:58):
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:40:58):
Nineteen sixty four saw the premieres of both The Adams
Family and this show, also named for.

Speaker 5 (01:41:06):
Its bad What is the Monsters?

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
That is correct? We probably keep score here.

Speaker 3 (01:41:14):
Yes, I'll do that, this show about the Korean War?

Speaker 5 (01:41:18):
Oh shoot, what is Mash?

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
That is correct? This is what's a great documentary on Mash?
It was so good.

Speaker 5 (01:41:24):
I love that show.

Speaker 2 (01:41:25):
I did it was it was a great, great show.

Speaker 3 (01:41:26):
Anyway, go ahead, full time classic beginning in nineteen seventy eight,
Bill Bixby.

Speaker 8 (01:41:31):
Don't.

Speaker 2 (01:41:33):
I think I got that one?

Speaker 1 (01:41:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
What is the Incredible Hulk? That is correct?

Speaker 3 (01:41:39):
See I didn't know that one because come on the original?

Speaker 5 (01:41:42):
Yeah, last one?

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
A footnote to history.

Speaker 3 (01:41:46):
Magician Fred Capps followed the Beatles on his February Oh.

Speaker 5 (01:41:51):
What is Ed Sullivan saw?

Speaker 2 (01:41:52):
That is correct? Ye wins.

Speaker 1 (01:41:56):
That was a good category, although the outrage over the
fresh Friends of bel Air may have set us off
our game a little bit.

Speaker 8 (01:42:02):
Chad, I spent most of my days.

Speaker 11 (01:42:06):
Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (01:42:07):
I took that deeply personally classic television. Good lord.

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
Anyway, Okay, we'll be back tomorrow. Okay, here's this week
of the show. We'll be back tomorrow for full show.
We'll be here Wednesday for a half hour, then we
have a full show on Thursday. Then we have a
one hour show on Friday. So I am preempted by
sports two different sports.

Speaker 2 (01:42:26):
At least this week. That's something.

Speaker 1 (01:42:28):
But in the meantime, KOA Sports Live from Training Camp.
As training camp continues, coming up next, keep it right
here on Koa