Full Show 5-12-26

She has 104-1 FM KMOX. Happy Tuesday. It's quite an opening song. Thanks. What brought you there? I don't know. I've just been listening to like the four tops lately. Nice. I've been listening to a lot of Motown. I enjoy it quite a bit. Love Motown. Underrated. phase in music. Isn't it enough credit? I mean, it gets credit, but it was... I mean, it's definitely faded out from when I was a kid. I remember when I was a kid, KLOU was like all the amount. I think we could argue that almost everything pop music now comes from that. The groups, the groups of people, you know, I mean, like... derivations of what boy bands are. Those guys weren't boy bands. They were men, you know, singing in groups. You know, it wasn't like teenage boys that were thrown together. These guys actually had talent, the Motown guys. I'm teasing. But yeah, I think maybe that idea started there where it's like groups of people singing and a lot of movement on stage and a lot of, but what preceding that? What was the way that it worked is basically just bands and people standing on stage playing instruments. It wasn't really. a big show and a lot of movement and a lot of, you know. I don't know. I mean. Before that, it was all big band. Big band and like the Lennon sisters and things like that and then into like Bill Haley in the comments. Interesting. Yeah. That's a big piece of the evolution of modern music right there. And I really am curious about because like when I listen to Phoebe's music like on a road trip with her or something, I've said this before. As a musician, I get it. Like I could play it. I see what you're doing. But it doesn't appeal to me. And you just wonder what is next. I always pictured, like when I was a kid, I pictured music today to be like, beep bo, beep, bo, you know. So of it is. The music of the future. Yeah. Everyone just is covered in foil. Yeah. Eating little gloves of. Feels brought something up right before the show that really brought back memories. He said, remember in school when the teacher would say, it's time to put your head down on the desk? Yeah. And Ray had something to say about it. And wheels had something to say. And all I'm thinking was, I wish I could do that right now. Yeah. I wish as an adult we had. Can you imagine? We just have a break. Someone comes to and they're like, okay, I want all of you to put your heads on your desk for half an hour. You're like, woo. I'm going to start doing that when you guys get out of hand. We're like, guys, it's time to put our heads on our desks. It's quiet time. That's pretty nice. Yeah. I like that. Movie day. Movie day was great. Oh, man. When they would wheel that thing in. Yeah. And they're never good movies. They're always hemoed magnificent or something like that. I was trying to teach you something. In freshman year, you had to take one semester of gym and then one semester of, like, health class. And our health teacher was the wrestling coach. And I don't know, every couple weeks, he would just put on a movie. Like one week, we watched the Road Warrior. Huh.

And he goes, personal safety, don't do anything you see in this movie. And then plays the movie. Did you guys have any sort of sex ed in Catholic school? Yeah. Yeah. I think started in fifth grade. Well, like, sort of. Yeah. You know what they say? We sort of did. Yeah. What do you mean, sort of? It wasn't comprehensive. Not what you're looking for? Yeah. It was like, I think they're leaving some stuff out. Yeah, like, it was clear that there was like, you know. It was a missing piece. Yeah, it was like big jumps, you know what I mean? Like, we didn't make any stops along the way. Gotcha. It was more of a science angle. And you could have used it because you thought sex was throwing up on people. Let's just, counting on that. Let's just say. Fifth grade Catholic school sex ed did not disabuse me of that notion. That's how non-comprehensive it was, is I walked away going, yeah, I guess I can still make sense of it. Very funny. I just saw, I've lost track. I haven't been to Alaska in 30 years more. But I think today was the day that the sun went down for the last time. And so it's like the 30 days of night. You have 30 days of light. And I remember so well there's a place in Anchorage called Chill Coot Charlie's. There's a big like a Dave and Busters, but for Alaskans. And I remember coming home from that like three in the morning and it looked like what it looks like here at about 6 p.m. And they had, I want to say they had lead in their drapes. just to block it out, to block out the sun. Man. Interesting. And, you know, then it was normal. And then the 30 days of dark, I don't remember getting like that bad in Anchorage. I'm sure farther north it does. What about the vampires? The vampires were bad. I know. What was that movie? 30 days of night. Oh, is that what it was called? I was going to say Twilight. I didn't know that was called. Twilight.

David Scruggs. I haven't seen David before. LaDave says not trying to start an argument, Kevin, but are you saying that boy bands like InSink and Backstreet Boys are not talented. Well, congratulations. He's started an argument. That's what I'm saying. How many of those folks had staying power? Justin Timberlake. Yeah. He's definitely got talent. Not trying to start an argument here, but I am going to confront the most argumentative person on the planet of earth. Oh, he's playing around. David's playing around. I think they're all talented. I have trouble thinking of a musician who has, quote, made it, who... I wouldn't think it's talented. Well, they're talented in, like, different ways, right? Like, I think you could argue maybe NSYNC aren't, like, super talented songwriters because they likely didn't write those songs. Wasn't the assignment, though. No, that's true. But they are, you could say they're talented singers and dancers and choreographers. A lot of them have a hand. They don't, they might not be the lead choreographers, but they have a hand and, you know, coming up with their own dances and stuff. So it's a different type of talent. Well, the position isn't that they don't have talent. The position is. they're not near the level of the Motown people. That's a different level to me. Different things. Yeah. But like talent stays. I mean, people still play the four tops literally 60 years later, 70 years later. And I don't know that if we're another 30 years down the road, we're still going back to the back street boys. Yeah, I've always found that interesting the way that my... Kevin's ready to say bye, bye, bye, bye, the way that my generation still sees our bands, because they're old as hell, but they're still out there. And my example is always Fall Out Boy, for some reason. Like, will you guys go see Fall Out Boy in 20 years? Kind of thing. Probably not me, because... I don't really want to go to that show. I don't know. I like that band, but I don't know if I want to go to their show. I don't know if you guys have any bands like that. Here's the problem. I have tons of them like that. Most of them are like that. But that's just because I don't really like going to concerts. Pre, like, 2008. that's like my favorite band. I like every single song that they made and I still listen to them all the time. Post 2008, they've been like absolute dog poop band. So I wouldn't go see them. I wouldn't go see them just because I haven't liked anything new that they've made in 20 years. And, you know. But like if the strokes are touring in 30 years, I'll go see the strokes. I'm trying to think of, and we've done this before, I'm trying to think of a band that has been really consistent over 20 years minimum. Oh, it's almost impossible. It really is. I mean, Sue Fighters were. They've been around for such a long time now that I just don't even listen to the new albums as they come out. I'm just going to die. I'm with them, I'm the same as Andrew is on Fallout Boy. Like, their first two albums are great. Since then, I couldn't care less about any of it.

Not to say it's bad. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm saying it's not what it was. It just feels like you just run out of it. Of your stuff. Seems like the normal pattern, right? Like very, the ones that last are the rare ones. Yeah. 95% seem like, you know, they've got a few albums in them where they're at their highest level. And then after that, it's just trying to hold on. Well, look at someone like Johnny Cash who had so much early success. And then later in his career was, was working with, I think it was T-Bone. Maybe it was Rick Rubin he was working with. I can't remember. But, like, put out, like, that great cover of the Soundgarden song. And, I mean, he... He kind of had a second phase. I don't even know if it's like, you have a certain amount of magic and it runs out as much as it's you have your time in the sun and then people are going to move on to the new thing. It's also hard to like what drives most people when they first get there is the drive to get there, right? Yeah. And your creativity is at its peak because it hasn't gotten out there yet. You know, but once you've put out 50, 60 songs or more. You're starting to be, you're a special person if you're still putting out greatness after that. Like, I think that's what separates a lot of the greats. Born to Run is like one of the greatest albums, hands down, flat out ever written, whether you're a Springsteen fan or not. it's flawless and the reason for that is because it was his absolute last chance to make something good he was like if this does not work no one's going to people had told him you're not we're not going to give you another chance we're not going to give you you know more shots you got this one last chance to do something big or that's it meanwhile down the road he's one of the most famous people in the world he's got more money than jesus and You know, it's hard to, it's hard to, when you're not hungry like that, it's hard to, I think, really produce something that can rise to the level of greatness. You know what I mean? I think that it's, there's a... A lot of people have said similar things, basically. It's just, it's hard to write when you're perfectly happy. It's hard to come up with, like, you know, really emotionally resonant music when you're, like, sitting in your mansion or out by your pool or out on your boat or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's... So, think about Paul McCartney, who is clearly, clearly an all-time grade. Right? Like, if there's a Hall of Fame of Hall of Famers, he's in that second Hall of Fame, right? Mm-hmm. What's he made in the last 40 years that's any good? Yikes. Temporary secretary. Yeah, there's one. Greatest song of all time. See if you can find that. I'll come in with that. I'm not even pick it on. To me, he's one of the all-time great songwriters and rock stars. And on the run came out in like 2002, didn't it? That's a pretty reason. Yeah, that was when I was like four. I mean, live and let die might be the last thing that I would listen to him from him and go like, that's awesome.

And it's not his fault. I think that happens to everybody for the most part. Yeah. Yeah. I feel lucky to be in this creative job. Pardon me? Because for the past. So people say like, oh, man, DGS was so much funnier when it first started. When it first started, I was insane. I was. Like, I was 36 going on 18. I was like a kid in a candy store. I had access to all this stuff. I had producers and Jim Modulin, and we'd do all these voices and characters and all that kind of stuff. And I had a lot more jet fuel. But I'm lucky in that, unlike most creative jobs, the table set for me every day when I come in. Because new stuff happens. Right. Is that what we do? We talk about stuff that happens in the world. stuff we think about and you guys hopefully like it and there you go. Yeah. So. Possibly the worst song ever written. I thought this is what you said the future music was going to sound like. I was right. And this was, I guess, over 40 years ago. Paul McCartney. Oh, my God. This came out in 1980, temporary secretary. Oh, that's what this is. What was? How did he make this? Yeah, what was he thinking? Look, Paul McCartney is an enormous talent, but he has written some crap songs. Oh, my God. That song Freedom that he wrote? I mean, just. They played this. I was unaware of it. It's like a miniature horse was playing the keyboard. And I took. Yeah, that's what the horses play. Because the cue the way he just bangs his snout. He's so fast. He's playing McCartney. Yeah, they played that at the Paul McCartney concert at Bush. Everyone went to about 10 years ago. Like, what? Was that a request? Happiness? Were people enjoying it? It was a lot of confusion. People are like, what's happening? Okay, so speaking of 1980. Last night, I just was letting the YouTube algorithm do its thing, and I watch a lot of tennis highlights. It was showing me highlights from the 1980 U.S. Open men's singles semifinal between John McImore and Jimmy Conner. Oh, man. It was really fun to watch. Yeah. With their tiny rackets? Yeah, right. But I looked down, and it took place on September 6th, 1980. And I was like, that was Dave's 16th birthday. And then I was thinking, like, I wonder what Dave was doing. Like, as they were. I think I know. Driving around South of Roxanna. Oh, God. My 16th birthday. Were you a driver's license right away kind of dude? Oh, everyone was. Yeah. Everyone was. I didn't know a single person that didn't get it on their 16th birthday. Boy, did that change in the last 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. I waited a couple months after my birthday, but that was only because I had to take driver's ed. My school didn't offer driver's ed. So I took it during the summer and you had to wait like six months after getting your permit. So I was a few months after turning 16. Did they offer how to drive a wagon? Like because it's Jerseyville? No, just because the way you describe it. Like very.

Very old school. I mean, my school wasn't even big enough to offer driver's ed. They had to outsource it to the public schools. Speaking of 16-year-olds, I had a sweet moment last night. I was getting gas and not a QT, like it up. I don't even know what the hell it was, Philip 66 or something. And it was just me and this young girl, I'm guessing she was 16, pulled up. And she says, excuse me, sir. And I said, yeah. And she goes, I have no idea how to make this work. And it was, you know, the classic pump. And she's like, which one of these, you know, like unleaded, mid, whatever do I want? And so I kind of walked her through it. And it was sweet. That's nice. It's nice that she was comfortable enough to ask. Yeah. Instead of just doing it wrong. It made me feel good. Then she was like, I'm not asking that guy. Have you ever seen the videos of the pranks that teenage girls play on their dads with that? I was just about to bring that rules. Yeah, they put the, they say that they put the diesel gas into the regular car, which will ruin your engine. Yeah, they'll be like, dad went to the green pump. Yeah, she's like, isn't that the better one? Yeah, it was more money, so I thought that was the best way. And the dad's like, what's you do? That's pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah, it made me judge, though, like, oh, I shouldn't even say this. Like, why didn't your dad teach you to do that, you know? Oh, by the way, for years before the kids turned 16, oh, my God. When we would visit grandma. in South Arkansas without Maureen, which we, you know, just wait, shook out sometimes, or just me and Phoebe or just me and Nick. And I would let them drive on the old country roads, and that came up during our KU visit. Yeah. So, Marine was like, ah, yeah, I kind of always, I thought you took to it pretty quick. Yeah. That's the greatest way, man. Out there on the country roads, run off the road, no big do the job I need a temporary secretary. God, this almost cancels out the Beatles. He's almost just even. He started up at zero after this song. You would need like, it blew the fortune. Here there and everywhere and yesterday just to make a dent in this one. Like if you brought in those three songs, you'd be like, we're going to pass. We're going to pass. Thank you, Paul, is it? Yeah. Good thing those weren't the ones in the 60s. Yeah. Good. I thought this was kind of interesting. We've talked about how... What's that? We have Jeff... Oh my gosh. How did I forget that? I thought that was at 2 o'clock. Colonel Jeff McCausland has been a friend of the show for years now. And we've met him several times. He is as cool of a guy as he seems on the air. And he is moving on from this position. And today, as I understand it, Colonel, is your final day doing these hits with CBS. Is that correct?

Well, I'll be around for a couple more days, but today I'm actually in the broadcast center in New York and decide I'd come up here and contact all the affiliates I work with like KMOX. for one last roundup. So, I mean, I will be available tomorrow and Thursday, but that's going to be it. As CBS Radio, as you probably will know, is being a disbanded and going away. Yeah. Well, Colonel, it has been a distinct honor and pleasure to have you on the show. I'm sure we'll talk in the future, but just before we start talking about anything real, like thank you so much for your contribution to the DGS and Game Wax. Well, it's been, again, a great pleasure working with all these feelings. KMOX is kind of my home station. I don't know if you realize that. But I was born and raised just north of St. Louis in Illinois. I still have family living in the St. Louis area. I hope they're listening after all those nice things you said about me a minute ago. They're like, oh, this guy. He doesn't know Jeff. He doesn't know Jeff. That's great. So let's jump into, and Colonel, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to give you my opinion and see how close I come. I'm pretty on the record that I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. I really, really try to be as objective as I can, to be as fair as I can. And even if this were my favorite president of all time, I feel like the president is kind of being played by Iran. I feel like they're playing two different games. The president seems to think it's blow up a bunch of stuff and they'll capitulate. And to me, Iran is playing a 47-year long game of, well, you know, we're not going to beat me one in a conventional war. So we just have to survive. And now, for the first time, they've locked up the straight. And I just don't see this ending well for the president. I hope I'm wrong. Well, I fear you might well be right. I mean, to begin with, let's pick your conflict, I think, started because the president made some assumptions, frankly, I think, urged on by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, that a strike on Iran would quickly cause the government to collapse and that, therefore, we would solve this problem, nuclear weapons once and for all, bring on a new government, much more amenable to the United States. Well, obviously, that hasn't worked, and though the administration has said, well, we have a new regime. I would say we haven't got a new regime. the Islamic Revolution, we've got a new leadership, and the new leadership is perhaps more conservative and more hardcore than the Grand Diatollah was who was killed to begin with. I think you're also right in terms of where we're at now. I think then Vice President JD Vance and others went to Pakistan to negotiate with the Iranians. a few weeks ago, and I think they expected the Iranians to surrender. This was going to be capitulation. The Iranians showed up to negotiate, and they brought a team of about 70, including experts. So where we are right now is, I think the Trump administration thinks, well, we're looking for the battleship, Missouri. We're looking for the Missouri, where the Japanese are going to come on board and they're going to surrender in this particular conflict. But they're not going to surrender, I think, wholesale. This is a...

a leadership that obviously went through the iranowok war hundreds of thousands of people get killed in that process back in january before this war began they killed seven to forty two thousand of our own people putting down social unrest i guarantee you one thing the current leadership in iran is not worried about midterm elections And as a consequence, they think their willpower to hold out is longer than Mr. Trump's. And that is the question that's we're asking at this particular moment. Do you want to negotiate with them and get them to comply with an agreement? Or if you don't, then you're going to try to take them down. If you're going to take them down, that's going to be a tall order, a land invasion. And if you like the war in Iraq, you're going to really like a land war in Iran. Yeah, my guess, Colonel, is that in the next two to four weeks, the president just goes, it's over, we're leaving. Europe can worry about the straight. And we have eyes on the enriched uranium. No one's going to go near that. Everything's cool. We sunk their Navy. I think that's what, I feel like that's what's going to happen. Could be. He has only got really three options. Option number, in no particular order, option number one, would be to intensify the blockade, try to put on more additional economic pressure, feeling that over time the Iranians will cave. I think that they've got at least a couple of months that they can hold out in terms of being able to store oil without shutting down their fields, which could do them serious damage. Number two option would be to intensify the military option, going for larger-scale bombing campaigns. perhaps some kind of a land force to go in either and take down the leadership in total or occupy key pieces of terrain like the Straits of Hormuz or Karg Island, thinking that might provide leverage. And then option number three is exactly what you just said, declare victory. And he's declared victory at least three or four times. And the Secretary of Defense has said, well, we've accomplished all our military objectives, really? And declare victory and go home. saying that again we only get a small portion of our oil out of that region and leaving it up not only to the Europeans but the Asians to take care of what's left in the mess. Right now, of course, he's on his way to China as we speak for a very important meeting with Xi Jinping, and the Chinese get an enormous amount of their oil and natural gas from the Straits of Hormuz, not only from Iran, but also from the other Gulf states. They have also gotten very close economic ties with a number of the countries in that region, so this could definitely potentially hurt the Chinese, and therefore they may have an interest in trying to apply pressure to bring it to a close. Colonel, it may just be brilliant Chinese hype and propaganda, but it just feels like China is occupying a higher seat at the table than anything I've seen in my lifetime. They're more accepted globally. They're really working it. They're really trying to be there when the United States falls in its face. Do you agree with that?

I think to some degree that's true, and I've seen polls that suggest people around the world seem more willing now to accept China as a world leader than the United States. This is based on Mr. Trump's actions against a lot of our allies. Don't forget the threat to actually attack and seize Greenland. This comes from the efforts in Venezuela. This comes from the war in Iran. This comes from the tariffs. And so many of our allies, not only in Europe, but in Asia, are certainly looking at that particular way. And if we are going to move away from our support of our allies, that creates a vacuum for the Chinese to move in on. For example, consider a worry right now that Mr. Trump might say something about we're no longer going to insist on Taiwanese independence. Well, if he was to do that, that would royal across Asia. If you're Korean, Japanese, or otherwise, you would say we have to accommodate the Chinese because he no longer can depend on the Americans. Man, Colonel, a question for you broader, because what you mentioned about Iran being more difficult than Iraq is certainly driving home a question to me anyway about the balance between the military expertise and the political expertise on the civilian side. Can you talk a bit about that push and pull? Because we hear from the political side and the civilian side. We don't often get to hear unless it's, you know, by permission. the military side of planning out these types of things. And I'm sure that intelligence knows these difficulties more than the politics side. How does that push and pull work? The politics versus the practical. Well, certainly the president, I think, was listening to Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu. I think one of the cheerleaders also for this conflict was the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Pete Hegseth, who I would dare say is, without a doubt, the most unqualified person ever to occupy the chair of Secretary of Defense in the history of this nation. But besides that, currently the chairman of joining his staff, General Kane, I think, is a very experienced military leader. But I've been told that Kane interprets his role differently, perhaps, than others that have been the chairman. He sees his role as laying out options of the president, explaining what the pluses and minuses and risks of each, but trying very hard to not show he actually is promoting one over the other and leaving those decisions to the political leadership, unlike other chairman I've known of, who are much more willing to try to say, this is the best option, sir, or trying to make sure that they didn't allow the president to make a choice that they thought was inappropriate. He seems to want to be an honest broker, and I've heard that... In some meetings, he's been criticized for being on both sides of an issue because he tries to honestly lay those particular issues out. I think that may lead us to where we are right now. But the problem we've got is, of course, that, you know, while the Pentagon, Mr. Pete Hegseth wants to talk about the number of targets we've struck, a number of Navy ships we have sunk. Who cares about the Iranian Navy, really?

A target list is not a strategy. And unfortunately, I think we went in this conflict with a strategy that it was going to be short, be over quickly, and now we're at the point of trying to answer the question that's too infrequently asked in Washington, which is, and then what? Colonel, I'm sure you knew some of these men and women, but I never, like when the president took over in his second term, I didn't begrudge him putting his own people in. It's like when a new program director comes in, sometimes they fire the morning show and they bring in their own person. But I know we had to have lost a great deal of military talent as they went through and purged the ranks. Can you just address that? Yeah, I mean, Mr. Pete Hegseth has fired dozens and dozens of senior military officers, and I think that has a chastening effect on other senior officers and providing advice. This is an administration, at least from the Pete Hegseth perspective, that's not interested in input. He's just interested in execution. Unfortunately, as well, I think a number of the officers that were forced into retirement seemed to be coincidentally either minorities, African American, and or women. And that sends a chilling effect as well to the force. And I think right now if you're a young woman or a minority, you might say to yourself, you know, the chances for me being promoted to this organization are pretty limited. And so you have the unintended effect of a lot of people then retiring before they absolutely have to because they're getting a message from above that their service is not considered to be valuable. Colonel, thank you again for all the years you've been on the show. And when you come back to St. Louis, I hope you'll reach out because we'd love to take you to a ballgame. Promise. We'll go see the Cubs play the Cardinals. Awesome. Thank you, Colonel. Take care.

G.S and CamoX. Happy Tuesday. Thanks to Andrew, we had some delicious Casey's pizza today. Oh, yeah, so good. Casey's the most underrated gas station food of all time. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Delicious. And you didn't hear it from me. I believe they're running a bit of a sale right now. They are. Consider, consider asking around. What type of sale they're running? Well, this is not an advertisement, so, you know, I'm not trying to, you know, feel like everybody go. But it's like 40% off all pizzas right now. Really? Yeah. Which is what led me down this path this morning. Did you have a piece? I did. What you think? It's not bad. Yeah, it's not bad. Definitely edible. Like, you know, some place you get pizza. Wow. No, no. I knew he was going to upset me because I gave him a piece and he was like, I might take a piece. I was like, yeah, part of why I brought it because he said he never had it before. This is the problem is what I'm saying is. And then he had no follow up after he ate it. And I was like, what am I supposed to do? Dance on my chair? It would be nice if you shake my ass. It would be nice if you shook your ass a little. I don't think that's so much to ask for. I'll bring in pizza every day for shake his ass. If you want to throw a little ass around, I wouldn't mind a bit, actually. This ginger never pay for another lunch in life. Free food for me. Doot do do do. That was good. What I was going to say was most gas station pizza is not edible. Casey's is good. Well, we can do a little better than edible, don't you think? I just said it was good. It's no Mexican chili, but... Just said it was good.

What do you think there, Rach? Was that a Wheeler thing? Like, did he under compliment? No, no, no, no. I think Andrew was just thinking maybe he didn't like it. No, that's good. You know. You guys just grading pizza pizza, not just gas station pizza, what would you give it? Thousand. Yeah, I really like it. It's fine. We're from the east side. Yeah. I would give it like a seven. Yeah. Yeah, I give it like a seven and a half, like a B or a B plus. Casey is where you go after proms, right? Okay. Okay. Right. It's where you stop every morning and you eat it in the parking lot and then you hide it so that no one could see that you did it. No, I don't think wheels did anything wrong. I think. it's a special pizza to Andrew so he was hoping that wheels would be like oh my goodness I loved that but he didn't do anything wrong by not saying that no and also if you don't like it there's also nothing wrong with that it was good this is an interesting concept because Wheeler just came off as sort of a D by mildly complimenting by strictly no by strictly being accurate He accurately reported his opinion. But we're such people players who are like, say more, say more. Next time I'll dance on the chair. And Kevin will twerk. I don't think I can do that. Wouldn't be unwelcome. By the way, who could and couldn't skip? I was out there. Oh, I can skip. We could all skip when we tried to skip, yes. I tried it too. Did you skip? Yeah. It came right back. Yeah. Yeah. So. I was talking to big game. And once I started rearing up, I did okay. But I was like, fine. I was like, ooh. When I'm really on the spot here, I'm not sure. Maybe I don't have it anymore. I wanted to make a video like, who can and can't skip? And then we were all perfectly. I didn't even post it. I was like, there's nothing funny about this. It's just three adults skipping. It's like we're all back in sixth grade. This is easy. Yeah. You know, it was kind of on my nerves. late night guys. Oh, I'm so glad you said this. Like, did you see them all get together on Stephen Colbert? Yes. And it's like, look, I grew up on late night. I graduated from Carson to Letterman and it was a huge thing for me. But it's no longer a big thing. It's no longer a huge thing. Well, there's also like nine of them now. Yeah. It used to be two. That too. I think you're being persecuted. I don't think what the president is doing is right. I don't think what the FCC is doing is right. You have my support. I will give you my protection, but you're really annoying me with this holier than now. I think if Stephen Colbert's ratings were better, this wouldn't be happening. Because, I mean, Jimmy Kimmel is way in way worse favor with the president.

So through that process, the strategy is create some chaos in the prosecution. lower the number of charges by getting some of them dismissed and then you plea bargain or try to plea bargain down when you have the remaining charges that are going to stick. So that's the overall strategy in a defense case. Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe I was just thinking of things too literally. I guess you're not actually saying like, I'm not guilty at all. It's more saying I'm not going to play nice with the situation as it stands. Prove it. Right. Right. Exactly. Because it's the state's job to prove it. people almost always, no one, boy, I'm sure someone has, but the vast, vast majority of all defendants plead not guilty so that they can go through that process that I just outlined for you. And Brad, you mentioned that prosecutors oftentimes like to overcharge and just kind of see what sticks. Does that ever end up hurting the prosecution in any way? Or is it just like, ah, well, we can try it. It's not going to be a big deal. No, it really does hurt them. And let me give you a brief example of how it can hurt them. So if a prosecutor throws out five charges against the defendant, one through five, five being the most severe, one being the least severe. And they throw all those out there. And let's assume that they all stick. Now in that case goes to a jury, the jury, if the jury feels sympathetic towards the defendant, then they can find him, guilt him or her, guilty of the least. a significant charge, and so therefore the prosecutors can actually be harmed by overcharging. And that's why even a lot of times you'll see prosecutions where they overcharge defendants, and then right before trial, they'll dismiss some of the charges because they don't want the jury to find him guilty of a misdemeanor if they, if they being the prosecution, thinks that they have the evidence to convict the defendant on a felony charge. Brad, question, if I shoot Wheeler for not being nice enough about Casey's pizza. Yep. And I'm charged. And I hire you as my attorney. And I say, look, Brad, I did it. I'm not going to play any games. I want to plead guilty at my arraignment. Are you even allowed to? I think you could be allowed to, but I wouldn't be representing you by that point. Yeah, can you flash that out? Well, sure, because everything in the legal system revolves around leverage. What do I mean by leverage? Leverage is, I have something that you want. That's what leverage is in a nutshell. So the prosecution wants you, Dave Glover, to plead guilty. So I'm going to make them pay for it. How do I mean by pay for it? I'm going to make them give me the least. significant charge. So it's not going to be murder. We're going to plead this down, even though you might have lots of motive, malice of forethought to kill Wheeler. In essence, what we're going to do is we're going to say, well, it was from the height of passion. So really it's...

It's a manslaughter charge because it wasn't premeditated. So what the state wants to do is to get from us a guilty plea. If you give it up too soon, that's like walking into a car dealership and paying sticker. You don't want to do that if you can get that same car for a less price or if you can end up pleading guilty for a lesser charge. And Brad, let's say that I am convicted and I'm given the death sentence. and we know it's going to take 20, 25 years to get me to the needle. Do you believe that maybe we've gone a little over the top with due process when it comes to that function of the courts? It's not so much due process, but I used to be a very strong proponent of the death penalty. and I've changed. Why? I still feel the same way, but there's only two reasons to support the death penalty. And this is in case law, even. And one is deterrent, right? If we execute Dave Glover for shooting Wheeler, then that may keep, you know, Mark Reardon from shooting Fred Bottamer, okay? So deterrence is number one. Second is making sure that justice aligns with the charge. or with what they were convicted of. But when you're on it in death row for 20 years, that negates both of the arguments for the death penalty. It takes so long, it's not really justice if it takes 25 years to go forward with the execution. And it's not a deterrent because a guy's going to know, hey, worst thing it can happen is I get 20 years of free meals. It's not going to be a deterrent. So if the death penalty doesn't meet either of those rationale for doing it, I'm not sure that it has any purpose other than emotional revenge type of a feeling, which is not the purpose of the death penalty at all. Very interesting. Let's talk about the Netflix case. I don't know much about it. I just know that Texas has filed suit against Netflix making some pretty dark allegations. Well, I find this interesting because right now we've got all of these lawsuits against meta and against YouTube, and they're arguing that it's Instagram, and the arguments are, and some of them have prevailed up to this point, not on appeal, but at the trial level, by saying this product is designed to addict my kid. That's what it's designed to do. And so, therefore, it's not negligence. It's not a design flaw. It's an intentional harm because you're trying to get my kids addicted to watching social media. Well, Texas is using that same argument against Netflix by saying the way that, you know, if you click, I like this or if you watch something on Netflix, it will give you more. options for something that you like. So Texas is making the argument here with Netflix, just like other plaintiffs have done against meta and social media platforms, by saying, you're trying to get my kid addicted to watching cheap teen romance.

movies and my kids addicted to that because of you Netflix and so we're going to make you pay not only money but we want you to be enjoined or prevented from from using those algorithms when my kids watching TV do these things do those types of arguments have a standing I mean, because people have been watching TV on the regular for 50 years. And every show is designed to keep you watching. And, you know, back in the day, the NBC Thursday night lineup when it was Friends and it was Seinfeld. Like the whole idea was we're trying to keep you on our station. Right, but it's general versus specific, okay? You know on the Friends Thursday night lineup that everyone who's going to be 20-something or 30-something is going to watch it. But they don't know that Kevin Wheeler is going to be watching. And this is different. The theory is different because it's not just we're trying to appeal to teenage girls who want to watch teen romance stuff. We're zeroing in on Alicia because we know that her parents subscribe to Netflix and she likes this stuff. So it goes from the general to the specific. And I think that's the allegation that makes sense when it comes to meta, at least legally. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just pointing out the legality of it. And that's what Texas is trying to do. Now, at the end of the day. I don't think that they're going to win on this case. I mean, I think Netflix is going to be able to get rid of this addiction and auto play part of the case and just narrow it towards other areas of the litigation because there's just not a lot of evidence that. Netflix is addictive in the same way that social media is addictive. Yeah, Brad will be curious to see what kind of evidence Texas has on the allegation that Netflix is, you know, surveilling their customers and building these sales profiles that they're then turning around and selling to other companies, especially because they say, you know, Netflix claimed they weren't interested in doing that and yet now they are doing that. I'm just interested to see the evidence on that. Yeah, and I think, Rachel, I think that part of this case is actually going to probably work in Texas' favor because they can show that Netflix bragged about not sharing your data. Right. And then through subpoenas, they can get evidence that they are sharing the data. So that part of the litigation, I think. will most likely be successful, maybe into the point of getting a plea bargain here out of Netflix, where I think it's less likely to be successful is showing that they're addicting teenagers with Netflix, because in reality, it's easier to catch that than it is social media. I mean, the parents can just terminate Netflix. They can see when they go into Netflix what the kids are watching. And I just think that that is going to be tougher for the state to prove.

I'm wondering if any of you guys can think of another example that's kind of a bait and switch like these tech companies do to us, which is they offer a service. A lot of times the service is free. Obviously, in Netflix's case, you're paying a subscription, but, you know, meta, Twitter, all of these places. They're offering you a service, but then they're just compiling, you know, this profile on you and then turning around and selling your data. Is there any other industry that you guys can think of that is allowed to do stuff like that? Where it's like, oh, yeah, we happen to know all of this about you because you're consuming our product. Now we're selling it to someone else. When the consumer is going in, like, not even thinking that this is going to happen. I mean, it's very clearly an internet thing, right? I mean. That's how you can search something on Amazon, and the next second you look at it, it's your banner on ESPN. It's also, I guess it's not, I started to say it's surprising, but it's kind of the opposite of surprising, that we have all just sort of gone, okay. Well, because we went into it not understanding what was happening. And then when you learn about it after the fact, it's harder to be like, oh my gosh, I don't consent to this. Well, I've already been consenting. Well, we did somewhere, right? Brad, it's in those terms. And we all click yes. Right. I even click yes. I don't read that crap. I'm sure it's in there somewhere. So we're all, I mean, but it's the practicality. Who's going to read all that? And fully grasp it. And then also, you know, if Texas is successful in this lawsuit, so then what? Netflix pays like a billion dollars tops. They won't pay that much, but they'll just pay it and then they'll continue to do it. It seems like we should have a lot harsher penalties for the whole bait and switch thing, but we don't. Well, there would be. I think in this case, Rachel, that any settlement would involve not just the payment of money, but would also involve an injunction or really what's called a consent judgment, where Netflix would agree that they will stop conducting these types of activities. I think from Texas standpoint, that's more important than money. Now, if this were a class action lawsuit, it's always about the money because that's how the lawyers get paid. But from a state, from a government. entity's perspective, they don't care so much about the money. They're paying lawyers anyway. They're more looking for the, what's called the equity part of the case, which is to stop Netflix from doing that. All right. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it, Brad. My pleasure, guys.

Welcome back, DGS. 224. So wheels and I both have new things from the Sean Duffy. Spent eight months with his wife, who's a Fox News lady, and their eight kids traveling across America, shooting a show. He didn't get paid for it, but all the sponsors are very recognizable. You know, like... Transportation companies who want favors with the administration, things like that. I just think it's absurd that anyone with a real job could just take seven months out of their first year and not do their job. But especially, you ass clown, when planes are landing on trucks and people and the DHS, like the TSA, like come on. How ridiculous are you? And my piece of it is that he and his wife are defending the show saying that anyone who has a problem with this, it's because of two reasons. The show is too wholesome and too patriotic. How would I even know that if I haven't seen it? That's their defense. Yeah. I saw a defense of that saying, look, they weren't on the road for seven months. They were on the road for several weekends during a seven month period. Regardless, you should be spending your time doing your job. I mean, how mad would sports fans be if you found out that during the season one of your players was missing any time at all? Yeah. Missing a game. to go do some music thing or to go do some other thing. You'd be like, no, not okay. But, of course, you know, Secretary is okay. Now, the story I saw today is Politico's got a story. They found the pitch profile for the show, like what they're giving to sponsors and potential sponsors. And there are various levels. And with the higher you go, the more, quote, access to networking you get with Sean Duffy. So if you're a transportation company that wants to spend a million dollars, you get more access to the transportation secretary. We're just breaking laws openly now. I mean, come on. I mean, when I was in law school, we were taught hammered into our heads. None of you are ever going to commit an ethical violation. That's not our worry. Our worry is that you'll have the appearance of impropriety. And we're all like, I don't want that. And now we're just like, hey, if you pay. A million dollars, we're going to go to lunch and I might introduce. It's like... Come on. So here, there's more to it than what I'm going to read. I'm just going to pick out that part that's about access because if you're a platinum partner starting at a million dollars for the Great American Road Trip, you get various promotional, like you get signage, you get, you know, banners on the page, whatever. You're like, you know, that's normal, normal stuff. But also, you get up to six VIP invitations to receptions, roundtables, and networking events. Reserve seating at Road Trip Activations.

In other words, access to the Transportation Secretary if you want to spend a million dollars. Everything about this is just wrong. It just is. And it's the least of our worries. We have 22-foot gold statues. Like, but it's just so on brand. It's so par for this administration. Yeah. Yep. And this is the kind of thing that if, you know, if you're a normal working person and you're like, I can do this side thing, but it will not take away time from my work. And the boss would probably be like, okay, but your work better not slip. And there better not be any problems. It's not like the whole transportation world is just going smooth. No. No. Not blaming that on him, by the way. But it's still his job to fix things and make things work. Yes. Welcome back, guys, DGS on Camelwax. Happy Tuesday to you. Time to talk to a pal, Ricky Horton. Hello, Rick. Happy Tuesday to you guys. So, Rick, we know the record and how the guys have done and very pleased so far, but how has the West Coast trip just been so far, just overall? Oh, it's been great. I mean, it was really fun in San Diego and kind of hard to not have fun in San Diego. I mean, you know, you don't want to always just kind of go to the weather in terms of talking about what the trip is like. But, you know, it really, it really was nice. And of course, Mother's Day. There were some guys that had some cool things to say about their moms for a broadcast on Sunday and getting a stay of that extra day in San Diego on Monday before coming here to Sacramento. And Sacramento, it's gorgeous here too. And it's my first look at this new ballpark, too. And many of the players have not been here. Now, Joel Pozo played here for four years, but it's going to be new for a lot of us. It's a fascinating thing, isn't it, Rick, to play major league games in a minor league ballpark and in an environment, by the way, that is incredibly friendly to offense. Yeah, well, we'll see how that turns out in the Cardinals' offense. I'd love to see the first four guys in the Cardinals' order just go crazy here in this ballpark. But, yeah, so minor, so it kind of has a, you know, I walked around, my son's visiting from L.A., so he and I walked around the ballpark this afternoon, went for a nice long walk down by the river and around the stadium here. And, you know, I feel like he has a feel a little bit of. spring training when you play in a minor league ballpark because that's kind of what it's like. But as I told my son, there were a couple of parks back in the day. It was Atlanta and Pittsburgh, when you got to the ballpark, you had to remind yourself, this counts today. So don't get lulled in to sleep here and thinking that this is not the big leagues because it is. Yeah, you don't want to get lulled to sleep facing that Oakland lineup, though. They have some pitching questions, but they can hit them all over the fence. Yeah, they can. And it's going to be a good series for that. They're in first place in the West. And, you know, they're not like they're gangbusters, but they're a couple games over 500. I think last I checked. So, you know, it'll be interesting. They got a guy throwing a bunch of changeups today. So we'll see if our guys can do that. Yeah, tough lefty. Jeffrey Springs. That'll be Andre Palante for the cards. Ricky, the rotation has been significantly better about the last, what, two, two and a half times through the mix.

You know, the first part of the year, that was a struggle and the offense was kind of carrying it. It's kind of reversed here in the last week and a half. Yeah, the ebbs and flows of a baseball season. We see that every year. And now it's, you know, the pitching is great. And the hitting is, you know, if the hitting would have been able to, they would have been able to push two or three more runs across. Maybe you win three out of four. Maybe you win four out of four in San Diego. That was very possible. Of course, the pitching for San Diego had something to do with that. But Cardinal starters have an ERA under three during that time frame. You mentioned about two and a half times through the rotation. And actually in the long run. I think you're better off when your starting pitchers are doing that because that eventually will help the bullpen get better and, you know, just score enough runs to win. I think the recipe in baseball still to me, and I, you know, not that I don't care about offense, but it's still pitching in defense. If you can pitch it and catch it, you're going to at least be in every game. Question for you guys. All of us, fans, are trying to understand the rebuild because we probably have done it in the Cardinals past, but we haven't talked about it so openly. And I'm trying to get a hold on how much cover. players have during this season and not to pick on him. I love Victor, but kind of taking him as an example. Like, is he covered through the end of the year or are they going to look at it and go, I think we've seen what we need to see. Yeah, well, I think that's a good question. I think the way it kind of is now, I think when you're in this rebuild state, let's call it that. And others may use a different word, but that's really what it is. But I think you just kind of let people play and you don't really make a decision too knee jerk. And when I say two knee jerk, no, he's not hitting right now. He might be hitting in three weeks. He might be hitting in a month. But there's not like this pressure to say. boy, if we lose the next two weeks of games because we've got two guys that are struggling, that ruins our season. You don't have that kind of... you know, sword hanging over your head. You just don't. And so, and so you're, it's not that, it's not that you can't logically make the statement that, you know, we could use another bat. Okay, you could say that. But is that really the answer that fits what we're doing? And I think what it really comes down to is all of the people working with all of our pitchers and hitters, and including Brant Brown working with Victor Scott, is what, what, as long as we feel like we, he's developing and is not,

There's no real results to it right now, but does it mean that he's not working at it? And so you give him every chance in the world to develop, and just as the Cardinals have done with Jim Jordan Walker, and eventually, you know, the light switch came on for him, and you hope that it will for Victor. Yeah. So to answer your question, Dave, when it comes to Victor Scott, a lot of it's about when Lars Neupar comes back and what it looks like. Yeah. Right. And Ollie was talking about this on Gas House Gang today with the guys with Bernie and Tom and Ronge. He didn't get specific. He's not going to. But just, yeah, you know, Newt's probably three weeks, four weeks away from being back. And if Nathan Church is going the way he has, he's been really good. I mean, really what, Ricky, since about two weeks into the season, three weeks. And since then, he's been really good. And Walker's great. And they're going to play Newt. I mean, Newt's not coming up here to be a bench guy. So that's when the time ain't the crunch might fit. when it comes to the outfield? I would be stunned if it's not another three or four weeks for Newt. I mean, I might be wrong on that. He's not on a three-day-day-or-20. Yeah, so I'm not sure how many days it is, and I'm not sure when it's going to start, but it's going to be four weeks out before we see it. Right, right. And so, so. you make the decision when you get closer to that. And so if you make a decision now, you know, you're going to bring up a guy that's going to hit 150 that's hitting in AAA. That doesn't get you anywhere. And so you want to make sure that you've got a viable solution. Or you can say, well, we'll go out and buy somebody that costs $10 million to play. No, that's not going to happen. So basically, you're just given a guy a chance until there's a better option. I think that, I think your answer is the right answer. Yeah, that'll be interesting to see, too, not just that one, but even other ones, you know, as the season goes along, because right now that's the big one. But one thing you can lean into for the time being because you don't have Newt as an option is that Victor Scott's going to play great center field. And, you know, that's kind of what you're hoping for. The hard part is if you have two or three guys not hitting at the bottom of the order, now it gets a little tougher. And that's kind of what it was in San Diego, Ricky, because Pahease isn't a bit of a slump and Scott's not hitting. And it kind of makes it tough because you don't get any turnover to the top of the order. So here's another, and here's not, but, yes, and here's another way to look at it. What team in baseball doesn't have two or three guys at the bottom of the order not hitting? Right now, I mean, probably what, 25 teams are like that? Yeah. Hey, the Dodgers have a guy in their lead-off spot that's not hitting, but I think they're going to find a way for him. Now, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that Victor Scott's going to be Shohei O'Connie. But the point is there's a lot of struggling veteran players in baseball right now. You think about all the really star-studded players. There's a lot of guys just. kind of not getting it done right now. And again, I'm not putting Victor in that in that slot yet. But, you know, just I think, again, if there's not another option, I think you just stay with what you've got. What do you, is it just coincidence? Cow rally and all these guys that are just, you know, kind of on the Schneide still. Like, I mean, it happens every year. It's just different dudes. It's baseball. I mean, honestly, so it's not a push-button thing. It's not like, you know, every season is different. Like you can come back to spring training. I used to remember this, Dave. I used to come to spring training and say, now how did I hold that change up again? I used to get everybody out with because you haven't thrown a baseball for three months back then. They do that now. But I want to get that, make sure I get that exact feel again because that was the difference maker for me. And you had that little bit of, I hope I can find it because this season is a new season.

And I've got to, you know, kind of figure it out again. And sometimes you figure it out, and sometimes it takes you a while to. It's going to be just fine eventually. But, you know, pitcher's adjusting him, too. That's the other thing. They see, well, what's the best way to attack him? And they just go right there. Well, let me be a total KMOX Homer here. But what I'm learning from this season, sitting in my seat in the bleachers, is that I am very excited by the core of this team. And I could see Mason, JJ, Gorman, Burleson, guys like that leading us into the playoffs, maybe even next year, certainly the year after. Yeah, so I was thinking a lot, again, about 1985, and I've mentioned this to you guys before, but in 1984, we were in third place, not very good. We lost our best player, Bruce Shooter, Hall of Famer, and we had five guys, no-name guys in the bullpen that turned into a thing that worked, and we got better, and we kept getting better, and we kept getting better, and then we kind of added on. You get Cesar Cedano to provide some pop. Now, there are other guys we got to, Jack Clark, but the point is, you know, it can turn fast. And all of a sudden, the guys that you don't, you know, nobody was talking about Willie McGee and Terry Pendleton before they had that season. And then they kept talking about it. I mean, Willie, of course, had the year in 82, but he was still young. And, you know, everybody just had better years and they developed. And so you never know in the game. And that's, again, the beauty of it is, is guys can all of a sudden turn it on on a dime just again, as Jim Jordan Walker did. Yeah, see, that's the thing. To me, this is a fun exercise. If Jim Jordan Walker hadn't emerged, what's the record? Because I think he's a huge part. He's the piece you're missing, right? He's the All-Star Power Hitter, right? Who's hitting fourth if he's not? Yeah. And so, yes, I think he has been the straw stirring the drink for sure. Yeah. And that's why the turnaround has faster than we thought, because an internal guy just blew up and now he's hitting like an All-Star. And, boy, in a year, if you have one more of those. whoever it happens to be Joshua Baez, maybe it's, maybe it's Reniel Rodriguez, who just got moved to AA at 19. Yes. Because nobody can get him out in A ball. Like, who knows how that works, but it's like those kind of things are what accelerate the process. This is accelerated, not only, but in large part because of Walker. And when you see somebody accelerate, and our 85 version would have been Jack Clark going from a really good outfielder to a 30-all-run guy and 100 RBIs. So when we saw that, and other guys went from a... you know, an okay pitcher to a pretty good eighth inning guy. Or an infielder went from a, you know, Tommy Hurr went from a good player to a guy that drove an 100 runs. I mean, everybody kind of went to their match, their better, which, you know, hopefully what's going on with Jim Jordan Walker will make Nolan Gorman find a better himself. And Mason Winn and JJ Weatherholt. And I think Weatherholt's a big difference maker, too, honestly. I mean, he's not hitting 300. I eventually will, but he's still very important to this season. Rick, have a great call tonight. We'll talk to you on Thursday. Thanks, guys. Good to be with you. Cardinals fans. This is Ricky Horton. Have you ever had a dream?

and KMOX, a few minutes shy of 3 p.m. Andrea, I was thinking about you last night. Thank you. I bought you something, and it's been misplaced in my home. So 30 years from now, I'm going to be in full-blown dementia and find an extra large team punch t-shirt. What's team punch? Team punch. Oh, team punch. Team punch. What's team punch? The monkey. Oh. Is that how I was supposed to react to the pizza? Yes. Yes. I'm shaking ass a little bit in case you're wondering. Yes, the wheeler corollary would have been for him to say like, I guess I could wear that. That sounds like something that would cover my body. Actually, if it's just an extra large, no sir. Let's see what's going on with Punch these days. I think Punch passed away. No. Oh. Why would you say that? What is it with you in like prematurely murdering people? No kidding. Peter Keir Starmer and now punch? No, yeah, that's right. Oh, you didn't murder them, but announcing their untimely deaths. I guess he punches probably still punching. Is there any punch news? Not really news. People are just going to visit him at the zoo still. It's kind of crazy how we do that with like little baby animals. Like Moudang? What was the last time anybody ever thought about Moodang? Well, you called it. During your punch phase, you said in three weeks, I'm not going to care. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not just me. No one's going to care because I've seen this so many times with like, you know, my little Instagram pets and stuff. I was the last fan of Little Bub when Little Bub died. He was Little Bub. Little Bub was this messed up little cat freak who, like, I mean, he was like a... His face was... He didn't look like a normal cat. Yeah, he was like permanently small, and his tongue hung out. I don't think he could see or smell or hear or anything, and so... Sounds awful. His owner paraded him out because he was cute, and we all had to deal with Little Bub. I was obsessed with Little Bub. I love Little Bub so much, and I was shattered when he died. Oh, man. This slug from a New York Times story on Punch three days ago is the best. You don't have to call Punch a slug. No, that's the name of the story. That's a journalism thing. I know. That punch, now nine months old, has been attracting tens of thousands of visitors to the small Japanese zoo. He ignores the attention. He's a true superstar. He just ignores it. He's a true star. He's like Brad Pitt walking through. I'm not answering questions. I'm ignoring you. I'll take punch over pretty much every other celebrity we have today. No, yeah. Did you guys see the Zendaya thing? No. She means nothing to me. She's not my generation. I don't think I've ever seen her anything. I don't hate her. Oh, you haven't seen the Spider-Man movies? No. Oh. You didn't want Euphoria? She showed up at a friend's wedding, which looked like is in like a little chapel like in Vegas or something. And she showed up 20 minutes late. And it's all on...

video and everyone's like oh my god oh my god and rather than her being like chills she's like oh what is her so i just like i just hate the celebrity i just hate celebrity i really have come to hate celebrity Well, that's tough, especially being a wedding. It's tough because it's supposed to be the bride's moment. So they always say like, don't wear white. Don't try to look prettier than the bride or anything like that. Zendaya is going to be prettier than like any bride. She is one of those gorgeous women on the planet. So like the fact that she is ultra famous and she's just showing up as herself 20 minutes late, like yeah, it's kind of a. Not maybe like the nicest move in the world for the bride to have that happen. Don't you get enough attention? Is it just that? I mean, I'm assuming, like, someone in the family said, like, will you please come in? And it'll make their year if you come in. And I highly doubt she was like, oh, sure, I would love to come, like out of nowhere. I mean, I know I'm just saying, like, I don't know if you guys know what celebrities are, but I saw Katie Perry the night of the med gala in some sort of a limo bus because she couldn't move because she's dressed like a robot. And she had her little face thing off. And she was talking to her eight handlers. And she's like, no, I want you to read every single comment that people post about. And I'm like, God, you suck. You suck. Yeah. Give me punch. Give me punch. Well, helps that he can't say words. Although, if you think Katie Perry a lot better if she didn't say words. If you think, number one, punch is showing up on time to that wedding. Or number two, the whole joint ain't shutting down when Punch walks in. You are incorrect, I think.

on KMOX. Our next guest in studio is Kelly Cannell. She is the executive director, Disabled Athlete Sports Association. They have their gateway games happening this weekend. And just in our brief little conversation, so you founded this 30 years ago. And we were talking about how Paralympics and things like that existed, but it didn't have nearly the coverage that we see today. No, over the last probably Two or three Paralympic Games were definitely getting more coverage. And I think that was mostly because of the sled hockey team. That sled hockey team, Team USA, has won gold for the last 10 Paralympic games. We, DASA, started a sled hockey program here in St. Louis in 2001. And since then we have produced four gold medalist Paralympians. One of them was team captain this year at the Paralympic Games. Well done. What was it 30 years ago that moved you to do this? I'm a physical therapist and I worked in the realm of spinal cord injuries and pediatrics. And it just didn't. fit right with me that I was trying to fix these individuals when I knew that through sport and fitness these individuals could be setting their own goals and they could perceive through or go through any challenges if we empowered them to use the abilities that they had and a lot of them were athletes to begin with so I didn't you know in their new normal it's like there's still a sport you can participate in and so I just formed a nonprofit. I had no idea it was going to get this far and this big today. That's fantastic. It was something for me to do on the side. And we have a mutual friend, Ammaris, who absolutely charmed the Dave Glover audience, as you can imagine. She does that. And you sort of discovered her. Yes. Actually, my son did. We were at the zoo. And my son said, it's a funny joke we say within our families is, look, Mommy, it's Dasa baby because he saw her prosthetic leg. My children have grown up with DASA and all of our athletes as family. And we started talking to Amarise and we got her into swimming and then track. And our family got to join her family in Paris for the Paralympic Games. So very, very proud of her. Yeah. She was fantastic. Yeah, she was an amazing lady. One ambassador. She's wonderful for everything, yes. So tell us about the games happening this weekend. So the gateway games presented by the Hartford is really exciting for DASA. We have been hosting the Gateway Games since 2009. In these past three years, the Hartford has seen the quality of the event, and we have been selected out of one of five series that they support across the country. So the Hartford supports us along with Move United and presenting a multi-sport event. So we are competing in air rifle, archery, open water triathlon, swimming, para powerlifting, track and field. And we have athletes coming from everywhere from Texas, Alabama, Indiana. We are the only adaptives parasport club in the Midwest.

So even for our athletes to be able to compete, they have to travel. So this is the one time of year where we have athletes come to us. Yeah. Weird question, a reverse question. But what do you think it is that maybe... the general population gets wrong about para athletes or maybe would be surprised by if they don't go to actually watch them compete. Right. I think it is not a weird question. It is something that as society, we tend to think those with disabilities fit in one box and those with abilities fit in another box. But if we think about it and us with abilities, we're all very different. So those with disabilities are also very different. Right away when you say somebody has a disability and they're in athletics, society typically assumes Special Olympics, which is a wonderful organization for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. There's not really a large fit for those with physical disabilities like cerebral palsy, amputation, spinal cord injury. And so this is an opportunity for them to compete at a very high level. Our athletes in this competition this weekend will have to hit a standard to make it to the national championships. And there might be half a percent of those athletes that are training an elite enough to even... think about hitting a standard for the Paralympics. Like any other kind of athletics? Yes. The Olympics and Paralympics are the same. So the sports that you see in L.A. in 2028 in the Paralympic Games will be the same as the Olympic Games. And those athletes train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. They train on track in Tel Avista. We're hoping to have at least five athletes in L.A. at the Paralympic Games. And Amarisa, of course, will be one of them. Yeah. Rates, can't jump in anywhere you want. So you are a feeder to the Paralympics. Yes, I would think that we could call ourselves a Paralympic pipeline. That's what we're doing. And it's wonderful when that happens. It's not the main focus, though. What we really want is for all individuals with physical disabilities to understand that they have abilities. It might be their new normal. But find it what your ability is and do the best you can with that ability. And don't let anybody lower the expectations of you. If you want to be an athlete, gosh darn it, we will find a way. The differences in what our athletes do and a typical athlete. is we have adaptive equipment. The sport itself is not adaptive. So if you come out and watch our track meet this Sunday out of Francis House Central, you will see us running the 100, 200, 400, 1,500. We run marathons. But we're running them in a racing chair. Or in like Amarisa's situation, she runs with a running leg. The rules are not different. We run by USATF sanctioned. So you go out of your lane, you're disqualified. Same with swimming.

Same with our triathlon. We are the only adaptive organization in the country that's hosting an open water triathlon for our athletes with disabilities. So if you're a triathlet, you should come out on Sunday morning and see our athletes that are swimming maybe without the use of their legs or maybe the use of one arm. But they are doing what you are doing. When they get out, they get in a... adaptive bicycle or a racing chair instead of running with their legs, but they're doing the same distances with the same rules and regulations. Was it, I would guess sort of like, like you said, um, If everyone here is an athlete, well, I'm going to be a lot better at something than Rach. It would be a lot better at something than me. And that's no different. Absolutely. You know, you were born missing a leg. You're just different. You're just different. You're just different. And you just do things differently. So just like in the typical world, if you love soccer, but you're not good at it. If you're in a soccer chair or not, then as it, DASA would not. we would say, okay, try it out, but we're not going to encourage you to stay because then that becomes special. That becomes like, oh, look what you can do. Right. And that's yucky. I don't like that. Instead, drill down on that format. Well, yeah. Instead, you know, that would be something that we, a society would want for that person. Like, oh, at least you can do this. Yeah. And instead, Das is going to find a sport that you're successful in. We had a young athlete, my friend Kyland. I'll throw his name out there. He's amazing too. He was an amazing able-bodied tennis player until his junior year of high school. And all these kids that jump into the high schools into the swimming pool at the hotel the night before, he dove in and broke his neck. Wow. That's what you say right away. Oh, right? But what happens is we meet him at the rehab center. We duct tape a tennis racket to his hand and we say you will play again. You're just going to play differently. Now he's a quad. So he did play in the open, the wheelchair tennis open. He did it. But then that and with his new normal wasn't the best sport for him. Because he loved tennis, but now that he has a new ability, his best sport was rugby. And he's really good at quad wheelchair rugby. So we found what was best for him instead of what everybody just assumed. You used to play tennis. Let's do it again. Where he wasn't exceptional at it. But he is very good at rugby. Kelly, talk a little bit more about the emotional well-being that playing sports can provide. Like maybe some of these athletes have just shared, like what it's able to do for them mentally emotionally. Thank you. Yes. They share it all the time because, well, our hockey team will talk about how it's a brotherhood. Our parents of these individuals talk about the emotional support because these aren't these are.

Athletes have different lifestyles, right? So they're wearing braces or they have to, if they all want to go out on Friday night, they got to figure out how they're going to get down the three steps to the restaurant. So they can share those experiences with each other. They all have great able-body friends, but these are type of experiences and emotional support they can receive from each other because they all are challenged in today's world. So that really helps. But also just being part of a team helps us all, right, when we're part of a team. Setting goals for yourself. I want to be the best I can in swimming. So I have to do my dry land training. I have to keep my grades up. That's different than your physical therapist telling you, I want you to do these exercises. You have to be stretched. Now I'm doing it for myself so I can be the best I can in swimming. So there's a lot of great social and emotional. growth that comes from being part of sport. My intuition is that the parents of disabled athletes have probably changed a lot over your 30 years because I'm guessing that 30 years ago, they may have been a little more like, I don't know about this. This seems dangerous or might be embarrassing. And now it's just, yeah, of course. Well, yes, that's true. But it's still for our new athletes, our new parents, it's a little challenging. One of my stories about parents is we were rock climbing once. And I was looking out the window and I saw a parent lift their child from the car and put them in the wheelchair and push them to the rock climbing wall. And that dad said, I don't know if he's going to be able to do it. And I said, you're right. He didn't even get out of the chair by himself. So we spent the first six weeks of eight weeks of rock climbing teaching him to get out of the... out of the car by himself. So you're not going to be a rock climber if you can't do that. So it's really teaching the parents. You know, I'm not going to fix them for this 30-minute session today. We are working on your whole person. Kev for years has coach 14 under baseball. I'm sure it's no different. Oh, yeah. Right? When they show up. Same idea. Same idea. Yep. I mean, to the word. Right. Yeah. From the very beginning, do this for yourself. Find what's best for you. Sometimes I am a third baseman. No, you're not. You're probably a right fielder. Right. Right. Same exact word for it process. And things like don't forget your bag. Right. Don't forget your water. Oh my God. Here's a Gatorade. Don't forget to bring your food. Right. How do people come out and observe or how do people get in touch with you and help? Yeah, so we are still looking for volunteers for this weekend. So we would love for someone to come out and really enjoy and be engaged with our athletes. And you can go to our website. It's www.dassports.org. And again, there are so many events to choose one from, from Friday through Sunday. Pick your pleasure, whatever sport you like. Come out and watch, be fans in the stands, or volunteer. We'd love to have you. Great to meet you. Anything we can do in the future, let us know. Thank you so much. Sleepers. Just stop sleep.

Happy Tuesday. Great segment. I love stuff like that. I just think it's great. Gen Z has a new term. Boomer Bad News Drop. They say that their boomer parents and grandparents love to drop bad news. And I'm laughing because my mom and dad were like that. That is true. They love to be the one to tell you that someone got hit by a train. Yeah, I think it's less of a boom. I think I think. like people associated with boomers right now because that is the like older parent age yeah the older parent generation but i do think that that is uh just a simply a mom and dad thing like like you said your mom and dad were not boomers and they loved doing it so the silent generation probably did the same thing i think a lot of boomers listening are going No, I don't do that. My parents did that. You know what I mean? I think that's just when mom and dad get a little older. I'm going to hold my hand up. I think Andrew's bright. I'm a little bit like this. I think Andrew's right. I don't know what the age is, but I think you're reaching age and that's what you do. I just love, I mean, I have a really big audience that I talk to four hours of frigging day. And yet in my other life, if I come across a little bit of information, whether it's. Hey, did you hear this happen in Congress? Or did you hear what Leroy did? I'd love to be the one to crack it on you. It's always fun when someone hasn't heard something. Oh, yeah. I thought this was interesting, too. Gen Z clearly is jealous of my and Wheeler's Generation Gen X because they're always trying to. do the stuff that we did, and they're always posting like, oh, my God, to be born in the 60s and did this and this and this. And then I just saw a story today that guess what is sweeping Gen Z? Hackysack. Oh, my God. Right. I actually saw some folks doing that, folks, some kids doing that maybe two weeks ago. I guess it's back. It's huge on college campuses. I mean, it makes sense. Easy. Fits in your pocket. Kills time, fun. Well, two of those things are, well, one of those things is true. Which one? It kills time. It fits in your pocket. Oh. I don't think it really kills time. It's not fun. It's not easy. Not a hacky-sagger? No. I was not either back in the day. I don't have those kinds of things. I wanted to be because, you know, around, I don't know, eighth grade, everybody started getting into it. Yeah. And it's like now. This is like the third life of hacky sacks. Yeah. What are the little skateboards called? Tech decks. What? I don't know about these. Those were popular when Andrew and I were kids and they're just like a skateboard. You like ride with your fingers basically. It's a little toy skateboard. The Gen Z kids, they love those.

I wanted to be good at those more than anything. There's a talent to it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not hard to do because a lot of my friends in like middle school and early high school were actual, like they actually liked to skateboard. And that was also during the era of like Tony Hawk was at his most popular and like jackass, which had a lot of very associated to skate culture was, was, you know, becoming huge and on TV and stuff. I wanted to be good at the little fingerboard stuff so bad. I just couldn't do it. I'm capable. I don't think I've ever seen this. Like, you just roll it around on the table in front of you? I'll see if I can find one at a toy store and bring it in. I'll find one at like Walgreens or whatever and bring it in. But like, do they have like little courses like in front of them? You're like, no, you just do tricks. Like you could grind on like the side of the table or whatever. And you can flip it and stuff? Yeah, if you're good at it, you can flip it. Okay. Got it. So it's more like a, like a fidget toy type thing. Yeah. Okay. Did you say no, Andrew? I did say no. But is it kind of like that, right? I was going to liken it to a fidget spinner in a way of just like, it's just kind of something to do. Something to do with your hands, yeah. Yeah. I mean, sure, I guess. In the way that like everything is something to do with your hands, I don't know. Well, what would you quantify it as a sport? Yeah. Like a, like a skill, like a toy. Like a skill-based toy. Like a yo-yo. Sort of, yeah. Like a yo-yo, like, sure, you can just do this with a yo-yo for two minutes and then go, this sucks and throw it. Or you could get, like, really good at it and do all kinds of, like, tricks and things. I think there's something to it. Now, granted, it does seem clear that I put this on a certain higher pedestal than everybody else. I'm not sure I've ever seen you defend something like this. It was funny where Wheels was like, oh, so it's like a fidget thing. And we said opposite answers at the exact same time, very decisively, like, yes, no. That's funny. by Artistic Dex. Welcome back, DGS. Our buddy Vic Souter says, well, I know wheels is Gen X. Dave, aren't you boomer but on the cusp? Shut up, Vic. Vic, chill, Vic. We don't bring that up, man. Chill, chill, chill, chill. Dave has disavowed the boomers. Chill. Chill. Hey, where's that button where you get rid of people? Oh, I can do that. Yeah, I missed Gen X by four months. And it's one of the baines of my existence because it is technically accurate and practically completely wrong. Yeah, you grew up as an ex. Completely. Yeah. Like my brother and sister were boomers. Right. And they grew up as boomers. They had JFK and, you know, Vietnam and all that stuff. And I had huffy bikes and, you know, the like. I'm proud to be a millennial. We do. I like it. Mm-hmm. I'm proud to be a boomer. Yeah. Come on.

You guys take it on the chin. We guys. We guys. We guys. Yeah. Ask me if I care. It's very gen X of you. Yeah, I was going to say, that's definitely our line. Dave, do you have an interview later or a date? Your hair looks fantastic. I just got a haircut. It's nice. Thank you. Seems that only one of us noticed. By the way, by the way. Andrew, Rachel pulled up the finger skateboarding website on the break. And I don't think it helped your argument much. Why? Well, we were trading for the finger-running Olympics in here a few minutes ago. Dave, I think you're going to win the 100. I'll get it. It is look kind of silly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's silly. It's like a, it's a toy. Kevin's direct quote was, that looks like something anyone could do. That's right. Oh, yeah, I'd love to see you try. Here. Here we go. It's not that easy, dude. It ain't that easy. The other problem is I went on Amazon and I was like, I'm buying one and I'm bringing it in and I'm going to show them. He's like $15. I got spending $15 on a piece of trash. I thought it was a little crazy myself. It's a piece of trash, but you're defending it. Buy two of them. It's a toy. I'll pay for them. And you and Wheeler can face off on the show. Well, there'd be no point me facing off because I already said I can't do it. We can do better than he can't. Nope. No? No. I tried for years and I'm still at square one. Just like actual skateboarding. I am completely incapable. I can't real skateboard at all ever. Never did it well. Fall on my ass every time. But I think I can do the finger skate. Yeah, to be clear, I'm not petitioning for this to be in the Olympics. I'm just saying it's like a toy. Yes. It's like a skill-based toy for your hands. If the aliens, I don't know why I'm saying towey like that with three syllables. The aliens landed and said, we just need your best finger skater. You're taking yourself out of the... I wouldn't, I don't even own one. I mean, I couldn't do it. No, there are people who can do, like, they can do the tricks for sure. Yeah, it's not impossible. Like, I don't think it's, like, extremely difficult to do the tricks and stuff. I just, I'm not able to do it. Okay, skill-based toy. How many of you guys can hula hoop? I can. I can do hoot. I can. Well, my... Oh, wait, everybody says they can hula hoop. Waste and hips are a little different than last time I tried it, so I actually don't know. Put a hula hoop on that Amazon order. I actually do not know if I can hula hoop any five of them. Yeah, I could never like, I couldn't do like three at once or anything. No, no. And I don't know I remember how long I could, but you can get it going for a little bit. Man, that's the good thing about my nieces are still so young that like, all you got to do is bust out the hula hoop. And they're like, oh my gosh, you're so...

I'm going to be in the checkout aisle with a bunch of toys and hula hoops. They're going to be like, sir, we're going to need some proof that you have a two-year-old child right now. Flexibility is a little bit more of a concern since the last time I did it. I think you can figure it out. You might throw your back out. Yeah. Brian M says, I'm literally just putting two fingers on the skateboard and rolling it around. Oh, it's literally. I thought you were doing it right now. I was like, oh, man, how about that? Resident Republican Brian N. You can flip it and make it do tricks. He's got a little tiny bag of skateboard. Here look. I'm going to make it do a trick. Here's the AI overview. So take it with a grain of salt. Using a tech deck is generally considered easy to start for casual play, but mastering tricks requires significant practice patience and fine motor skills. I don't have any of that. I've got none of that. You busted out early on it. None of that business. I'm not trying to yuck anybody's yum. But why would... No, it's not, Andrew. You know to not waste your time on this. Yeah. If this is something that's, like, extremely difficult and you're pouring hours into it, why? Why not do something cool? Like, I'm not trying to... Like a yo-yo. That is actually kind of where I landed with it when I was trying really hard to be good at it. At a certain point, I was like... I don't even want to call it diminishing returns because it's null returns. There are no returns. It's not going to impress girls. Yeah, no one's going to think this is cool. You're not going to get a tech deck scholarship. Like my friends, like my friends who can do it well who already hate me and think I'm stupid and a loser, they're not going to like me more because I learn how to do the stupid thing with my hands. Who hates you? Eh, I was, it was a weird time for me. Oh, you mean back then? Back then. Yeah, back then. No, now I'm talking about you guys. No, yeah. We can all see hating you back then.

We're going to defend today, Andrew, there. Oh, you know had this hit when I was in sixth grade. I would have been a master. This and dance lessons. Yeah, this is exactly the kind of thing I thought women wanted. He'd been doing tech, check, check lessons in the basement. Oh, yeah. I'm already nun chucking and setting up a little course. Yes. Yes. Were you able to do it, Rach, did you say? I never owned one. Okay. Like, the boys in my class had one, so I would like take it for a spend for like 30 seconds. But then it was like, okay, well. I'm pretending I'm writing a skateboard, I guess. It's kind of like playing with like a little toy horse or something. It's like, yeah, it's like, I'm skating down to the park. Precisely, yes. It was supposed to be wish fulfillment for losers like me who don't have the like balance and coordination to actually skateboard. So I was like, oh, this is perfect. This is going to be like kind of the same thing. And then I didn't do this either. I was like, come on. I guarantee you that even the guy that invented it goes, This is kind of stupid, right? Like, no one's going to buy a tiny skateboard. Still going. I was shy. I thought it was going to be, like, vintage choice. What else could we miniaturize that you could do with your fingers? Oh, there's miniature BMX that you ride with your fingers. You pedal it? I don't think you pedal it, but you work the bars and then you, like, flip it and do spins and stuff. Silly me. Like when you had the GI Joe's, man, they used to be like Olympic divers because you just go, woo. Yeah. Fall, yeah. Hot wheels? Yeah, hot wheels, man, you can do tricks. Oh, now tricks are cool. We're not really saying they're cool. Oh. But you can do them. You can do them. I can take my car and just go, look at that. That's the thing you could. You could. I'm an excellent driver. I can see Andrew when he was young, maybe even now with a little top hat, a little cane and doing magic tricks. I had a cane. Oh, okay. No, no, because I don't have the, I don't have the dexterity. I don't have the fine motor skills. If I could do close-up magic, I'm sure I could do kick flips and stuff. On the skateboard? On the, well, on the miniature skateboard. I got you. On the tech deck. No, I would love to be able to do close to magic. I don't think I can do it. I've never really tried, but I don't think I could. One of Phoebe's roommates... has taken up what's it called close magic close up magic yeah like a sleight of hand stuff and uh we're there last weekend and she's so impressed nick and brie that they've invited her to be the pre-wedding entertainment at their wedding wow is that cool nice have stella there doing magic tricks for people that is i think is the father i have to pay for that but you know genzie is so weird man

I didn't know a ton of sorority girls when I was in college, but they really weren't into close-up magic, sleight of hand. Andrew, you're going to be a great old man. You got a head start. Chits these days with their hand dexterities and their up-close magic. This all started because we were talking about hacky sack. Oh, yeah. Do you guys remember hand sack? I have some experience. Dave and I went down the same road there. I have some experience. I've never heard of this. Vaguely. I've never heard of this, but I found it on a Wikipedia list of skill toys. Is my name there? Which is what Andrew described the tech deck as a skill toy. Skill-based toy. So it's a sack or similar object, typically made of cloth and filled with sand or similar material. Yeah, thanks, Dave. It's been a good 25 years. Cost on the back of the hand for the purpose of mastering tricks or playing games. On the back? Yeah. Never tried the back of the hand.

Well, I just wondered if you guys knew what it was. It is a skill. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. It's one of the few skills that's innate to the human animal. What other toys are on there? Any other good ones? Yeah, there's a bunch I've never heard of. Andrew's like trying to change this subject. Yeah, he's trying to help out. Well, I keep having more jokes that come up that I really don't want to say so I have to change it. I'm just going to see here to laugh because I'm going to get in trouble. A boomering. Oh, my goodness. That's one. Every boy on earth wanted to try a boomerang. And it either didn't work or it killed one of your loved ones. Yes. It's really only two options. They come in hot when they come back at you. Yeah. It knocked out a bunch of grandpa's memories or you just chucked it and it just disappeared. Oh, my goodness. Tech Deck is on the list of skill toys. Oh, boy. Validation. Come on now. Come on now. Hey, if you can handsack, you can. You can tech deck. You can tech deck. Same basic principles. Look, Dave, a flip. Slinky. Slinky is not a skill-based toy. Oh, my God, it is. Oh, you got to get it going down those stairs. Yeah. Especially if you're going angles and... Does anyone ever made that happen? Yes. Down the stairs? I've never tried. You have to have the metal slinky. I've got a slinky at home right now. Plastic slinkies are... Yeah, you're right. The metal is you got to have. Yeah. Plastic ones suck. I was into yo-yo's for a couple weeks. Oh, me too. So Rachel and I were part of the generation, and maybe you guys had this too, where for some reason in our school, they were allowed to bring in... Oh, yeah, mark it. Yeah, they were allowed to bring in professional yo-yo tour and just to sell us yo-yo? Yes. What in the hell was going on there? And the weirdest part is in my school, like, they had that but Christian. So that was like all avenues were being covered. Christian yo-yo's? Yeah, it was like a Christian message. Oh, okay. Because there's no way they're letting him into the school unless it's like on message. Or Christ. I call this one. He's in the tomb and he's out. This is the crown of thorns.

Guys, we spend so much time on the handsack that we don't have a segment here. When we come back, we'll do the think tank with Kurt Bar and Roshin Aldridge. Should be really good. Welcome back, guys, DGS on KMOX. Gorgeous Tuesday afternoon out there, a few minutes past 4 p.m. A couple of Tuesdays per month, we do the think tank where we get a couple of our friends together, typically on opposite sides of the aisle, and we discuss issues going on nationally or locally statewide city. We have Kurt Bar, the director of elections in St. Charles County. We have Alderman Rashine Aldridge. Two of my favorite guys, for real. Like, you guys couldn't be more different politically, but I feel like I could reason with either one of you. And you could reason with each other. Absolutely. Yeah, he's a great guy. Right? Put you guys in a room, come back in two hours. You have a solution? Like, yeah. Maybe we should do more of that. Captive legislation. You mean the two sides talking to each other, asking questions and listening? Make it like a conclave, right? Oh. Click that lock and we'll see you boys when you come out. Yeah, I think we'll be good, though. I don't know if it's maybe our history of both being a legislator, but I'm probably glad we're not in legislative. Definitely glad I'm not there. But. having that opportunity of working with both sides of the aisle because there were times when my biggest opponent was a fellow Republican. And there were other times when my biggest supporter was another Democrat. Now, that wasn't the case most of the time. But it happened often enough that I had to realize that it's not about the party. It's about, you know, each person's values and what they hold dear. And, you know, if you can work with somebody, you know, one out of the nine times you agree with them, then great, do it. If you guys had to trace back. when this changed, you know, when you could work with a Democrat, you could work with a Republican, and now it's at least very difficult. What do you trace it back to? Is there a year? Is there an era? Is there a person? So I was in the legislature from 2011 to 2018. Kind of the last good time. Like for real? Some people say that, yeah. And so... At that time, it was right after the Tea Party movement was big. And so there was some of that. And I remember I was a very conservative legislator. Went lots of conservative awards. And I remember there was multiple times I'd look up at the board and I'd see myself and some of the most progressive Democrats voting the same way on issues. You know what, though? A 2011, very conservative, didn't mean you were a big giant D. That is true. That is true. It didn't. It just meant that you had certain values that you protected. But it didn't mean you were a jerk. Right. Right. And so that, you know, so I had to look at my, I looked up the board. I'm like, how am I voting with this progressive Democrat from University City? Like, why are we voting the same way? And it was partly because, like, I was voting because I thought government was doing too much. They were voting no because they thought government was doing too little. But we were both principled. on like our stances. And I learned to work with people who like, you know, I knew, you know, eight times out of ten, I was going to disagree with them on policy issues. But on those two other issues, like we could work well together and, and respect people for where they were because they're consistent in their values and beliefs. And I think that for the most part, I got that same respect where, you know, even among my fellow Republicans, there are certain things like I'm not big on economic development.

And so I was always against any type of corporate welfare type of bill, even though it was Republicans usually pushing those. And the caucus just knew I didn't support it. And so they respected me for that position because I was consistent on it. You ever do this? You ever like look at someone on the other side, whether it's like an actual opponent or just someone who's on television? And you just know they're so elementally wrong. But you remind yourself the emotions that they're having in their body and the thoughts they're having in their brain are just like yours. They couldn't be more convinced that they're right. Yeah. I mean, it's a simple concept, but every now and I have to remind myself, they're not doing this to troll you. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a few that, you know, there's a few that enjoy that. But, you know, so I went to the house right after you. So I went in 2019 when Bruce Franks had stepped down. And I think for me, I think it was kind of probably already far gone of like, you know. sides from the federal level, you know, kind of separating, you know, that was post Mike Brown, that was post, you know, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, you know, the both extremes on both sides. So I think... Unfortunately, I didn't get to see those great days, but I did get to see. I think it was very interesting on the Senate side. I think the Senate is completely different than what it used to be in the past. I was able to see the Kiki curls of the time, the Jamil and the Sheads at the time where they actually work with, like, Wheeland, and they worked with Republicans that get stuff done. But, you know, I would say, you know, on the House side, I think it was a lot different because we were already out there. But there was still a lot of people like Representative Lane and others. that we're still able to work together and get stuff done. Like you say, regardless of DNR, what I've learned is, you know, when people get to the floor, it's like the, it's their reality show moment. It's like when the lights camera action, and they get very extreme, they get very dramatic. But, and then you learn after, you know, the floor, you go to people offices. And I think I said this last time when I was here, like, the issues are the same, no matter if you're in the boot hill or if you're in urban Missouri of like, you know, people want health care, people want minimum wage. I think we have different views of how. that happened but like you know once we talk about the issues and I think we eliminate like the party we can really get somewhere to get stuff done together regardless if you're a D if you're progressive if you're a moderate conservative or are like the issues I think is what really bring folks together let's talk about the city first and we're kind of talking about this in the break and let's start with the state control And this one is thorny for me, more personally than intellectually, because I consider the mayor a friend. Chris Saracino is a very good friend. I think all the players want what's best for the city. But boy, they're coming at it very differently. And I was asking you, were you a bit surprised by the aggression of the commission?

Yeah, not only surprised by the aggression, you know, I'm really disheartened that, you know, with the state control. And I'm going to be honest, you know, the bill was filed by a Republican, I think, in St. Charles. That, you know, has no real like dealings in the city, you know, in my opinion, outside of coming to a blues game and Cardinals game, no shade. I think he's a good guy. But I feel like we've made a lot of good progress in the city of St. Louis of, you know, with... our elected leaders with organizations and our law enforcement, like working together. You know, Chief Tracy, he wasn't my first pick when we did the national search, but I will say he's been doing a phenomenal job. And now, you know, the state control has kind of put like a buffer between the city and the police department with his new board that has like basically just picked up the keys to the house and said, like, this is our house. And. It's really made relationships. You know, like you say, you got, I like Chris. You know, I go to Chris at the docket. You know, I didn't vote for Kara, but I think she's been doing a decent job. And I think this board is driving, like, a wedge between, like, progress in the city of St. Louis when it come to our law enforcement. You know, it's no question that we definitely need public safety. We need police officers. The men and women, they do a great job. The question comes, you know. at what costs, right? And I think the board don't understand that we have to be fiscally responsible in the city of St. Louis to make sure we pay our officers, but we also got to make sure we keep our refuse workers. We got to make sure we keep individuals that, like, you know, make sure that our streets are safe. Like, there's so many other departments outside of law enforcement. And between the board and the attorney, the aggression has just been like from zero to 10 in a short time. Do you see any path forward outside of litigation deciding this? Unfortunately, I don't because I think the argument is what is general revenue. You know, right now you have the board now saying general revenue is like the Rams money. As a Rams bill is now being worked on, you know, they're saying general revenue is other things that technically I don't agree general revenue is. But also our budget director, Paul Payne, he's been a budget director for the city of St. Louis for 20 years. He always... Make sure we have a balanced budget. And I think both sides at this point just don't agree. Outside of the mayor, I know there's a lot of my colleagues at the Board of Sam Altman that don't agree that the commission understand what like. how to do a budget. And I've been down at the Board of Allman for four years. I've been on a budget committee the whole four years, and I'm still learning. And you have a group of individuals that don't have that day-to-day insight of how this special tax is actually not general revenue or how these reserves aren't general revenue. So I think at this point, there's no other choice but to get a ruling from the judge to say, yeah or nay. So let's say the judge rules in favor of the commission against the city. How bad can it be for the city? The state control bill in general already, in my opinion, is kind of unfortunate because it's an unfunded mandate. You know, it's saying, hey, you have to pay this much to the police department and there's no support from the state. You know, it'd be different if the state is coming in saying, you know, we support our police officers. When you look at the budget this year, it's not really much different from the budget of last year when it come to law enforcement. You know, the police department makes up over 50% of public safety. Public safety makes up over...

50% of the budget in general. And there's a significant increase that we did this year. And to be honest, you know, we talk about police vacancies, but we always give, as we call it in budget terms, FTE, full-time employees. We always make sure that the police department have the FTEs that they need, but they don't necessarily fill those positions. But I think if the judge come back and say, hey, you got to do 23% when you look at this budget, my opinion. It's at 23. It gets a little difficult when it gets to 24 and 25. And you have other departments that we also have to, in my opinion, as part of public safety, our building division, our excise division, our health department. Those are critical things to public safety. Yeah, I mean, and then what happens when it's time to, you know, renegotiate the budget next time? Are we going to take away the amount of money? You know, like if we can, if we're promising this much now, it just, it doesn't seem to to look good for the future. Is that making any sense? A little bit. You know, I would say the promise of the 23% that actually is not a promise is in state law that we got to do it. In my opinion, I feel like that's what we're doing. You know, and I feel like, you know, we're going to continue to abide by state law. It does put the city in a tight position. But, you know, we're going to follow the law. I think what you're seeing now, though, is the commission going beyond those numbers and to the point of, you know, If it's state control, who's in control of, like, certain buildings that the police department own. Currently, we're doing those maintenance. Currently, we're paying for that. But, like, who should be paying for that? So that's why I think the judgment ultimately from the judge is going to be important because there's still a lot of gray of general revenue. And if the police department owned the buildings, why is the city of St. Louis still paying for it? Kurt, you're one of those wise people in St. Charles that gets that the city matters to St. Charles. Do you have a dog in the fight here? Do I have a dog and fight of the conflict between the board and the city? I don't as far as, you know, I'm far enough removed. I have no... influence or impact in it. However, as I'm listening to this conversation, it's kind of similar in, you know, because I was on the state budget when I was in legislature. And in the state constitution, we have to spend 25% of general revenue on public education. And then there was also some criticism of the bill that was passed by the legislature this year because they did not fully fund the foundation formula, even though the foundation formula technically requires more than that 25% of general revenue. But, you know, the state budget is, you know, they have special funds, they have dedicated funds, and they have general revenue funds. And, you know, and these terms mean, you know, mean things. And, you know, there's different types of taxes and they're usually dedicated for different types of things. And so I'm hearing the conflict between the state and the city. And, you know, my time being in the budget, you know, at the state level, I see that same type of conflict where the number of resources are finite.

And you want to do the best you can for the people overall. But, you know, the more you put into one bucket, the less you have for another bucket. And so, like... It's one of those things. And, you know, the point about like buildings, like who maintains the buildings, who funds the buildings, you know, buildings is a very expensive endeavor for governments. And so I'm just, you know, I'm just putting them back on my budget hat. And when I was in the legislature going, I remember those problems. Those are hard problems to have. But when you try to redefine terms and just say, well, because I want this pool of money, I'm going to call it GR. That's not a good way to start the conversation. Can you guys hang one more segment? Absolutely. All right, quick break right back. Welcome back, guys, DGS and Kama Wex. We have Kurt Bar here from St. Charles County. We're seeing in Aldridge from the city. Kurt, you have something coming up on Flag Day. Yeah, so June 14th, which is a Sunday this year, the St. Charles County Election Authority is going to have an open house and a candidate meet and greet. So we're going to invite the 100-plus candidates who will be on the August ballot for all of our political parties to come out and see the Election Authority office. And we're inviting the public to come meet the candidates, see the Election Authority, get a tour. We're going to have a sample polling place set up with real ballots for kids to be able to vote on their favorite ice cream flavor and superhero. Can I vote? Absolutely, yeah. You can be out there. I'd rather go on that than for the people. And because this is a Sunday, we're calling it Sundays on Sunday. So we're going to have some ice cream out there for the kids or the big kids. A pet adoption is going to bring some of the, from the dogs from pet adoption. Dogs and ice cream? So if you're good, you get ice cream. If you're not good, then you go home with a dog. So that's kind of how it works. So we're open up the election authority office two to five Sunday, June 14th, and we're inviting. Fudging like sprinkles and all the good toppings for ice? We're not going to the sprinkles. I got new carpet. But we still have ice cream. This is St. Charles County. They don't do sprangers. Oh, yeah. It's vanilla. There you go. Rachine. So the anniversary of the tornadoes coming up in just a few days. What's good? What's bad? What's working? What's not? You know, I have... It's a shocker that it's been one year. I remember I stay in this building. And I remember when the storm came and, you know, living in St. Louis, we haven't had a storm like a tornado on like 50 years. So I was like, oh, you know, I'm just going to actually sleep during this because who don't love to sleep during the rain? When I woke up, I seen all the devastation. I reached out to Dan, Gunther, and we went out there on, like, Natural Bridge and Euclid and just seeing the devastation, right? And, you know, I would say the, what we need to continue to do is the city, I'll be honest, I think we need to figure out how to move recovery faster.

You know, I'll be real. We are talking about a billion-dollar storm. We're talking about an area in North St. Louis that's already been disinvested. So it sucks at a tornado hit an area that already needed support. You know, we're looking at Rams money right now to allocate very soon. But even if we allocate it's like $250 million of Rams, if we allocate it every dollar of that, that still wouldn't be enough to make people whole. So, you know, it's going to be a struggle of trying to figure out where does that money come from. We're waiting on the state to drop down the money that they said that they would do. FEMA's like reopening back up with the politics there, but I would say what we need to do first is we definitely need to figure out how do we start to move recovery quicker. I will say what has been positive is the people power, the people that have organized when city government didn't know what to do. Like you had organizations like Action St. Louis for the culture, you like was out there on day one holding, you know, these things may be small, but it meant a lot, it meant a lot to a lot of people, food drives for them to have. food and like, you know, detergent and all these different things. The community support around it and seeing people to come together in a tragedy like this is always kind of beautiful to see. These poor people, this can't get a break. They can't. They can't. And again, you know, like there's people still without tarps, steal people with, you know, roofs on their, on their building. And it's just, it's, you know, I think for us, You know, we all probably got a roof on our hair right now. I couldn't imagine, you know, what it's like to now, like, be sleeping out on your line. And that's been your reality for 365 days. You know, this one year is going to bring back, I think, so many emotions, not just for me, but people that's been impacted by it. And I continue to challenge myself. I know I'm one person, one older, but like, what can I do to try to make this situation better? Yeah. I mean, I hate to be all small. But we're just humans. You know, it's like North County, South County, Wildwood. What the F? We're all just people. Yeah. Right? These are people sleeping outside. It is. It is. And it's people that's sleeping outside. We're talking about, you know, individuals that have been. Living in these homes for generation or sometimes algebra ziana is what we say on north side. Maybe it's Big Mama House, you know, that has been, you know, passed down to you. And now your world, your reality, your whole family history is completely gone. I know I got a friend Alonzo Townsend. His family home was destroyed. His dad was like a blues player and very known blues player. And all that like history and memory for his grandkids is like it was all taken away in the tornado. So it's just, it's so sad. That is Kurt Barr and Roshin Aldridge. Thank you guys. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having it.