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TMP348 ANDY BIZER: BYWATER BLESSED · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Listeners, welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I am Renee Coleman, once again sitting in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge in the heart of the Clempire with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome, man.
• 0:33
  Speaker B: Hey, Ben Jackos, how are you?
• 0:36
  Speaker A: I'm good, how are you?
• 0:38
  Speaker B: I'm all right, man. Hot.
• 0:39
  Speaker A: It's really hot.
• 0:41
  Speaker B: We were talking before we got on the air about above ground pools, right? Yeah, I was thinking about that just last week when I was at the Walmart, I saw those, you know, inflatable ones and I was looking at it going, should I, should I? And I was like, nah. Because the same kind that we bought for our kid when she was growing up, when she's like three or four, just, you know, just like two feet high, right. Nine feet long, you know, that's perfect. Right. You lay in there with a glass
• 1:13
  Speaker A: of wine or something just deep enough to drown in.
• 1:15
  Speaker B: Yeah. Keeping up to drowning. But I thought better. I figured, you know, the club I go to has a huge pool. I could just right there, cool off if I want, you know, So I said no. Yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker A: And you have trees in your backyard, right? Had to deal with the leaves and stuff.
• 1:30
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:31
  Speaker B: My neighbor, that Chris Joseph.
• 1:34
  Speaker A: Oh, geez. Okay.
• 1:35
  Speaker B: God, he's the worst landlord, man. You know, he buys his house, takes off and now he's leasing it to young people.
• 1:43
  Speaker A: And he has a pool and rental property.
• 1:45
  Speaker B: Oh, no, he's got. He doesn't do about his trees.
• 1:49
  Speaker A: Oh, he has trees, okay.
• 1:50
  Speaker B: Yeah. The sides of his house are just weeds everywhere. They're growing into my side. I have to cut them. The front of the house is out of control. He's. He doesn't. You know, the guy's always talking about this and doing this and doing this. Well, pay for a gardener to come and do some landscaping once a month,
• 2:07
  Speaker A: mow the yard might be the tenant's responsibility. Perhaps it could be.
• 2:12
  Speaker B: Maybe they pay less. Maybe that's the deal they make.
• 2:16
  Speaker A: Right.
• 2:16
  Speaker B: But I mean, it's going to become an eyesore and I'm going to have to call them.
• 2:19
  Speaker A: Right, Right. Yeah. Well, you don't want to have to live next to it.
• 2:22
  Speaker D: That's.
• 2:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't have to live next to it.
• 2:25
  Speaker A: You take care of your property.
• 2:26
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 2:26
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 2:27
  Speaker B: What a jerk that guy is. Oh, woe is me. I've got cancer, you know, it's very sad. Yeah. You're always bragging about how you're recovering, how you're fighting and you're winning and all that kind of stuff. Do something about your yard. Deadbeat land.
• 2:44
  Speaker A: Well, maybe he just needs to get over the hump of, of his physical recovery so he can focus on the properties.
• 2:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know.
• 2:50
  Speaker A: I don't know.
• 2:50
  Speaker B: But he did post something very strange. He said he's going to start doing for his recovery. Doing coffee enemas.
• 2:56
  Speaker A: Huh.
• 2:57
  Speaker B: I don't know if that is something that works.
• 2:59
  Speaker A: I don't know. I wouldn't. It's not something I would find out. Oh, well, I don't know.
• 3:04
  Speaker B: And he posted a picture of the bag full of coffee or something. I don't know.
• 3:08
  Speaker A: Huh.
• 3:09
  Speaker B: Disgusting.
• 3:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:11
  Speaker B: Anyway, do something about your yard. If you're listening.
• 3:13
  Speaker A: Okay, he's listening still. But perhaps you never know, maybe you can send him a link. Well, anyway, I missed you. I was good. We were gone. We didn't have a show last week. You're surviving. You've been in the, the heat of New Orleans.
• 3:29
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 3:29
  Speaker A: Had a near miss with the hurricane, that whatever tropical storm. I know. Well, you know the news, the news channels. I was talking about this to a friend of mine yester that like on Channel 6 news every day it's always breaking news and every day is a weather alert day.
• 3:49
  Speaker B: Right.
• 3:49
  Speaker A: And they have taken to exclusively telling you what the heat index numbers are because they're much higher. They don't tell you what the real temperature is.
• 3:58
  Speaker B: My wife said that to me about a week ago. That's why she says I don't like to watch their news anymore. She's watching the wwl which has news stories at beginning. You know, it used to be where the weather was the last thing part of the news show.
• 4:11
  Speaker A: Right.
• 4:11
  Speaker B: You know? Yeah. News, sports and weather.
• 4:13
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 4:14
  Speaker B: Now it's like weather. The first 10 seconds, you know, it's like there's a murder in Algiers. But first, weather.
• 4:21
  Speaker A: It's hot.
• 4:22
  Speaker B: It's hot out there. Drink water, you know. Well, of course we know that, you fucking idiot. Charles Manson is alive still. But first the weather, you know, it's
• 4:33
  Speaker A: just like there's activity in the Atlantic,
• 4:35
  Speaker B: but all stations are doing it, some more than others. But when we were kids it was just like news, sports and weather, right? You might have a human interest story put in there, you know.
• 4:46
  Speaker A: Well, it's, it's part of. They want us to stay agitated and on high alert, you know, they're trying to keep the, the cortisol levels high.
• 4:55
  Speaker D: Doing a good job politically is not doing it enough.
• 4:58
  Speaker A: Right, right. Well, extra layer of weather, everybody, you know, Maybe the local news, they don't have those, so they gotta. You gotta use what you got, you know. Now, on a similar news thing I've been wanting to talk about for a while, and this came up in my same conversation with a friend yesterday, former Troublemen guest Scott Ploshe. Anyway, that the national news and I'm watching NBC national news every day. There's at least one animal attack story as part of the six stories that they have. It's like, you know, it's like a few weeks or last week they had a bear and a car. And then last a couple of weeks before that they had the local story where the guy was trying to evade arrest and jumped into the bayou and an alligator went.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: And then that old man got gored by a bison.
• 5:50
  Speaker A: A bison, right. And then they had the follow up story with the old man a week later and talk about what it was like to get.
• 5:56
  Speaker D: How's he doing? I didn't follow him.
• 5:57
  Speaker A: I think he was okay. He, I did. The only thing I heard about the follow up was he said hitting the ground was the worst part. So, okay, I guess he knows and
• 6:08
  Speaker B: he's not eating bison burgers anymore.
• 6:10
  Speaker A: Right.
• 6:10
  Speaker B: But the best one was I think about a week ago where this bear stole some guys golf clubs. Did you see that one?
• 6:17
  Speaker A: That one too. That was on the national news.
• 6:19
  Speaker B: He just took his golf club. I don't care about you. I don't want to eat you. You know. So it's true. A bear does putt in the woods.
• 6:27
  Speaker A: Oh, they use that same thing.
• 6:28
  Speaker B: It's.
• 6:29
  Speaker A: Donna goes, what does that mean? I had to explain. She goes, oh, that's so gross. I was like, yes, that's. They're doing a joke on national news
• 6:36
  Speaker B: without having to say the word.
• 6:38
  Speaker A: Walter Cronkite would be so thrilled.
• 6:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, that was the most hilarious thing though, was I, I gotta have your clubs. Yeah, I'm just taking your clubs. And the poor guy, the poor golfer, I mean, he's such an idiot. He was just like going, he was saying things like, no, no, like it was a dog.
• 6:55
  Speaker A: It's like, no, no, put it down,
• 6:58
  Speaker B: put it, put it down. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Animals. I, you know. You with animals, man?
• 7:04
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I know.
• 7:05
  Speaker B: Start, you know, more we get into their homes, the more they're gonna get angry.
• 7:08
  Speaker A: Sure, sure. Well, you know, it's like, I understand they used to have the, the half hour show When Animals Attack. You know, it's syndicated, but this is the national news. This is, it's just stuff they scrape off of YouTube. You know, that's right. I don't know.
• 7:24
  Speaker B: You know, I don't know. I. I don't know. It's just everywhere.
• 7:27
  Speaker D: Right.
• 7:28
  Speaker A: Well, let's see what you have. Anything. Anything on your mind. Yeah, okay.
• 7:33
  Speaker B: I saw some things just yesterday. You know, people are struggling. Yes, people are struggling.
• 7:38
  Speaker A: Struggle continues.
• 7:40
  Speaker B: You know, it always goes on. And this was how, I think how bad things are getting for some people. I saw this yesterday. A guy went to see. I think he went to see that movie the Odyssey at an IMAX theater, right? And, you know, maybe he's, you know, he paid to get in, but somehow he was able to get in a crock pot. And he set up a little thing in the last row of the IMAX theater and he was selling chili.
• 8:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 8:11
  Speaker B: He turned on a crock pot and people would come back there and get a bowl of chili.
• 8:15
  Speaker A: Now, when you said just to show you how, my mind kind of goes in weird directions. When you said he got in a crock pot, I was thinking, how big was this crock pot? But no, you mean he smuggled in a crock pot? He did not get into a crock pot.
• 8:28
  Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, no, I figured it out quickly. You're one of those guys who thinks that if I hit you over the head with a frying pan, you can go and your head will come back, right?
• 8:38
  Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no. Anyway, so. So we got the chili and he's. He's running side business end back there.
• 8:46
  Speaker B: He got busted. But I. Somewhere like.
• 8:50
  Speaker D: I think tickets are expensive.
• 8:52
  Speaker B: I don't know where it was. Oh, yeah, tickets are expensive for that imax.
• 8:55
  Speaker D: I took my. Both my kids to the the Odyssey out in Harahan and Elmwood.
• 9:01
  Speaker A: How'd you like it?
• 9:02
  Speaker D: I enjoyed it. It was, it was, it was. It felt like three hours, but it delivered at the end and it was a. It was exciting. Yeah.
• 9:08
  Speaker A: Well, you know, I saw Christopher Nolan talking about it and he was saying, you know, that anything that we absolutely had to use cgi, we did, but anything that we could do any other real life way, we did. So I guess some of these huge battle scenes, they have thousands of extras.
• 9:28
  Speaker D: Yeah, it was fun to watch. I'm not. I'm not a big cinephile, but my kids were into the Odyssey. They.
• 9:34
  Speaker B: You've been accused of being cinephile, right? Haven't you? A little bit.
• 9:39
  Speaker A: You know, once. Once they make the accusation, it's, you know, it's done. It's. I like movies. Okay. Oh, that's what that means.
• 9:46
  Speaker D: All right.
• 9:47
  Speaker B: But, but I get. I bet. I guarantee you halfway through that three hour film, you were. You. You wanted a bowl of chili, man, didn't you?
• 9:56
  Speaker D: It would have hit the spot.
• 9:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. Some chips and cheese, onions. Okay. The whole.
• 10:03
  Speaker A: All the fixings.
• 10:05
  Speaker B: Well, apparently this guy had all the fixing and he. He was doing well until he got busted. You know, someone had to complain. I don't know. But. Yeah, so I have no desire to see that film. I don't like that kind of genre of film. No care for it.
• 10:19
  Speaker A: What about the gladiator movies? No, it doesn't do anything. Kind of ancient history.
• 10:24
  Speaker B: Yeah,
• 10:27
  Speaker A: even. Even real life. Like, I don't know. I mean, those kind of big battle pictures. Did you see a Napoleon or anything like that? Holy Bonaparte, whatever that, that.
• 10:38
  Speaker B: The 1928 movie.
• 10:39
  Speaker A: No, they did one. I think Brian De Palma did one a couple of years ago.
• 10:42
  Speaker B: That really.
• 10:43
  Speaker A: It's pretty grand scale. Yeah, I had some of these, you know, large.
• 10:46
  Speaker B: God, Napoleon.
• 10:48
  Speaker A: I think that's.
• 10:49
  Speaker B: It would have been like an eight hour film.
• 10:51
  Speaker A: It was long. It was on the long. Jesus.
• 10:54
  Speaker B: You know, because he's such a Hitchcock fan. Just everything just leading up to like, something get to it. To palm Brian.
• 11:01
  Speaker A: It had a bit of that in it.
• 11:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, we know he's short now get to us.
• 11:08
  Speaker A: But, you know, I had to see it because I'll see this picture as well. So the IMAX screen, it's breathtaking, right? With those kind of.
• 11:17
  Speaker D: Yeah, it really was. I'm, you know, a big, you know, all the boats in the water, you know, and there's a lot of, you know, guys running for fear. Back into the boat. That was some exciting. Some exciting moments.
• 11:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. People running for their lives.
• 11:32
  Speaker B: They were immigrants.
• 11:34
  Speaker D: They were. They were. They were. They were. They were visitors.
• 11:37
  Speaker B: Visitors.
• 11:37
  Speaker D: A lot of visiting different places.
• 11:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, populations have always moved.
• 11:42
  Speaker B: Well, my daughter loves it. She loves that whole genre.
• 11:45
  Speaker A: She.
• 11:45
  Speaker B: I think she went. Saw it today.
• 11:46
  Speaker A: Oh, right on.
• 11:47
  Speaker B: I'm having dinner with her tomorrow.
• 11:48
  Speaker A: All right. We'll have to get her report coming up here.
• 11:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, but, yeah, so I want to know if they had any chili or something anyway.
• 11:55
  Speaker A: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker B: But also, you know, people are struggling and this is how weird things are getting. An Illinois woman shot her boyfriend in the back as he was trying to leave their apartment with her hair.
• 12:11
  Speaker A: Oh, geez.
• 12:13
  Speaker B: He had taken her hair.
• 12:15
  Speaker A: Irish chick. Yeah. I don't know, maybe.
• 12:19
  Speaker B: I think that was her. Her beard. I think that was her beard. Irish chick, maybe it was the be. I don't know. But she shot him in the back cuz he was taking her hair. They had a big argument.
• 12:31
  Speaker A: It's tough.
• 12:31
  Speaker B: And she's actually the one, but she was the one who called the police and said, I shot him in the back. And they came, they said, why'd you do that? He was taking my hair. Hair. Yeah, yeah. They didn't say what from what part of the body the hair was.
• 12:44
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. They said could have been a merkin or something. Okay.
• 12:47
  Speaker B: I don't know. Underarm. I, I don't know, you know, but, but yeah, things are going crazy. People are struggling. You know, the heat. Right. The. How expensive things are. You know, they're struggling, so they're shooting people in the back and I get it.
• 13:05
  Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
• 13:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. Just like this. Jeopardy. A past Jeopardy. Winner was arrested just last week. He, he, with his winnings. He, he started an Airbnb, but he had cameras everywhere. Hitting cameras, you know, getting off on, you know, people doing it or changing and all that kind of stuff.
• 13:29
  Speaker A: It's a crime.
• 13:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. What is? Peeping Tom for 400. You know, that's basically what it was. But anyway, that's going on. What else is happening?
• 13:39
  Speaker A: Right, what else is happening? Well, I saw, you know, our beloved Circle Bar. We've been wondering what is the, the future of the Circle Bar. I saw that and you know, it's. I, I thought that when, when the Circle Bar moved out, our beloved Klemperer, Dave Clements lost the lease on the building. I thought, well, they're going to maybe try a demolition by neglect on this thing because they want to clear that out. But no, in fact, they spent a bunch of money shoring the building up, but it's just sat vacant for, for the past four years or something. So just the other day we saw news that the owner of the Saints, Gail Benson.
• 14:16
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 14:17
  Speaker A: Purchased the Circle Bar building and the lot next to it and then the, the three story building on the other side. I guess it was called the Taylor Building or something and you know, the Taylor Tots.
• 14:29
  Speaker B: Tots for Taylor or Taylor for Tots?
• 14:31
  Speaker A: I, I don't know. I'm not sure what about that Tots part, but Taylor Energy owned it.
• 14:36
  Speaker B: Big Philanthroper. He gave money for college.
• 14:40
  Speaker C: Oh, okay.
• 14:41
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. The, the Taylor scholarships are still, still in place for Louisiana college students. No, no, but now Gail Benson owned it and owns it now. And she said, well, I, in the last few years have decided to start sinking some money into New Orleans preservation, buying, you know, endangered properties. And I was like, oh, good for her.
• 15:06
  Speaker B: That's.
• 15:07
  Speaker A: That's good. That's.
• 15:07
  Speaker B: That's.
• 15:08
  Speaker D: That's.
• 15:08
  Speaker A: I'm happy, but I mean, geez, you know, Harmony Circle, former Lee Circle, you know, it's prime landmark in New Orleans.
• 15:16
  Speaker B: You know, she just wants a balcony to watch Mardi grasp.
• 15:19
  Speaker A: All right, well, there you go. That's why she. She.
• 15:21
  Speaker B: You know, she can afford one on the shit.
• 15:23
  Speaker D: Don't anticipate she would open a bar, though. I don't.
• 15:26
  Speaker A: Probably not. Not Circle bar is not going to. Never going to come back. Don't. Don't get any big ideas, people.
• 15:32
  Speaker B: Maybe if Dave talks to her.
• 15:34
  Speaker A: Maybe he is. Chicks do dig days.
• 15:36
  Speaker B: Older chicks.
• 15:37
  Speaker A: Older chicks dig them, too. Yeah, yeah. Plenty of tread on that tire.
• 15:42
  Speaker B: You know, too bad she couldn't buy the Tivoli Apartments there.
• 15:46
  Speaker A: I know, I know.
• 15:47
  Speaker B: That's something. But that place is needed. That place is needed for people like that.
• 15:51
  Speaker A: Yeah. The Tivoli Apartments really does kind of set up a certain vibe there, you know, with. This is a street scene and involved with it.
• 16:00
  Speaker B: Right.
• 16:00
  Speaker A: So, I don't know. We'll have to see how. We'll see what she shakes out. What else? Some sad news for the New Orleans music community.
• 16:12
  Speaker B: A.
• 16:12
  Speaker A: A giant among New Orleans musicians. The great Hector Gallardo passed away. Now, Hector was a Cuban percussion master. Played with. With everybody and. And. And in the. The whole scene nationally. He's also a. A martial arts practitioner. And he's the kind of guy. He was a little wacky, you know, and in certain ways, he. And he. He would tell you stories about how he could focus his chi, so. So in such a concentrated way that he could throw it at you across the room and it would knock you down.
• 16:48
  Speaker B: His chi.
• 16:49
  Speaker A: His chi? Yeah, you know, the energy and, you know, that's.
• 16:53
  Speaker B: That. That's slang for piss in Spanish.
• 16:55
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 16:56
  Speaker B: So I thought you meant he was. So.
• 16:58
  Speaker A: No, I think this is. This is Chinese of some sort, I believe.
• 17:01
  Speaker B: What instrument did he play?
• 17:02
  Speaker A: He was a. He was like a conga player and bongo player.
• 17:05
  Speaker B: So he would do karate moves while playing the conga?
• 17:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, he could. And now this is a guy that
• 17:11
  Speaker B: would throw his chi at his conga.
• 17:13
  Speaker A: Well, and he said that if he wanted to, he could throw it so hard that it would stop your heart. He had to be careful with that. You know, it's like. It's like his hands were registered.
• 17:22
  Speaker B: Sounds like a bullshit lethal weapons.
• 17:24
  Speaker A: Well, so much so that I really tried to get him on the podcast several times. But every engagement that I had just resulted in being kind of, you know, the can being kicked down the road, but me being sucked into some drama about making calls to, you know, know a car repair place or, or doing some kind of phone errand or something for Hector. So I, I had to. Had to ultimately give up, but now that, that, that ship has sailed.
• 17:58
  Speaker B: Anyway, so he was a guy who asked a lot of favors from people.
• 18:01
  Speaker A: Well, you know, he, he just. At the end, that's. I don't know that. Just with me. Not just with me, but. Anyway, uh, he's dead, we're sorry to say. See Hector go.
• 18:12
  Speaker B: He was all his own chi.
• 18:13
  Speaker A: He was a giant. He was a giant.
• 18:15
  Speaker B: He self cheat himself.
• 18:17
  Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know. I think he'd been ill for a little while, but sadly he's gone now.
• 18:22
  Speaker B: Where did he live here?
• 18:23
  Speaker A: I think he was living in New Orleans East.
• 18:25
  Speaker B: Oh, that'll kill anyone.
• 18:27
  Speaker A: Last few years, it's. It can be tough out there. Well, maybe we should get to our guest here.
• 18:34
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 18:34
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He seems very game, our guest. He's somebody I've had on the list for a long time. He's a terrific attorney. His practice focuses on civil rights of persons with disabilities and he's been a leader in forcing local government compliance with Americans with Disability Acts accommodations. He's also been an artist manager for bands such as Hooray for the Riff Raff and the Great King Louis Bankston. He's also the singer in New Orleans own novelty cover band the Shitty Stones, as well as being a member of the Valparaiso Men's Chorus. We're gonna get into all that and much more. But without further ado, the great Mr. Andy Bizer. Welcome Andy.
• 19:20
  Speaker D: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
• 19:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, man.
• 19:22
  Speaker D: Exciting to be here and listen to the show. Like it a lot and I'm.
• 19:25
  Speaker A: Oh really?
• 19:26
  Speaker D: I'm tickled to have been to be a guest.
• 19:29
  Speaker A: Okay, well, we're tickled to have you. You know, it's. I always say, you know, I keep these lists of guests and I lose them. I move on to other notebooks, you know, and I make new lists and then I sometimes would go back to the. And go, anyway, I'm glad I'll be able to cross your name.
• 19:48
  Speaker D: Sure.
• 19:48
  Speaker A: Off of the list. Well, so, I mean, I know you, you're a friend of many. We have many mutual friends. Jeff Traffinger is a. A good friend of yours. Very close friend of mine. The Podcast Manny Chevrolet. Everything in New Orleans is connected. So Manny, in maybe his first or second run at the, at the mayorship, one of your other people is running with you. Running against you was Jonah Baskell.
• 20:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, Jonah.
• 20:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, Jonah. The great Jonah Baskell. Who, and, and who was a. He was in a wheelchair.
• 20:22
  Speaker D: A stand up comedian in a wheelchair.
• 20:24
  Speaker A: Right. And he was kind of like a one issue candidate. He said, all I care about is having wheelchair access for the streetcars.
• 20:35
  Speaker D: Correct.
• 20:36
  Speaker A: And you were his attorney, so.
• 20:38
  Speaker D: I was attorney. I was his attorney for a few places like the McDonald's on St. Charles Avenue that wasn't accessible. And then later on, I sued the RTA and the city of New Orleans on behalf of some other wheelchair users to make the St. Charles Avenue streetcar accessible.
• 20:55
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 20:56
  Speaker D: And that was really, that was a real career highlight for me. Obviously, you know, they had been lying for years that they had some sort of exemption or whatever. So he just did a public records request. Send us whatever information you have that says that you should. You don't have any duty to make this streetcar compliant with the ADA. Which was passed in like 1991.
• 21:18
  Speaker B: Right.
• 21:18
  Speaker D: So they didn't have anything. So we sued them. And after a few years of litigation, they tried to get out of it, and then they ended up settling. And we had a limited number of cars that became accessible with lifts. You know, the red ones up and down Canal street, they're all outfitted with lifts.
• 21:34
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 21:34
  Speaker B: And air conditioning.
• 21:35
  Speaker D: And air conditioning. But the green ones, I think is Pearly Thomas, they call them. Those ones they refused to make accessible because they felt like it would mess with the historic value of the streetcars. So they did a limited amount with a limited amount of spots. But since then, through another litigation and some more political pressure, they're going to end up making all the stops accessible and all the streetcars accessible.
• 22:02
  Speaker A: Oh, man. Fantastic.
• 22:04
  Speaker D: Yeah. Super proud of that.
• 22:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, man, it's gotta be really gratifying. You know, it's like of all the things you could do, you see people say, like, my son just graduated from law school, this is just finished his first year of work, you know, and people would say, we don't need any more lawyers.
• 22:21
  Speaker D: Sure.
• 22:21
  Speaker A: And I say, no, we don't need any more bad lawyers. We need good lawyers. We need more good lawyers.
• 22:28
  Speaker D: Thank you.
• 22:28
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:29
  Speaker D: And you know, we've done. We sued over the bus stops. You know, every bus stop has to have, you know, a concrete landing pad. And a lot of the bus stops in town are just a stick in the dirt. You Know, and like, that doesn't. That doesn't work, you know, because, you know, if you want to catch the bus and you're in a chair and there's nowhere to be, you got to sort of be out there on the street, you know, and that's no good. Yeah, so that was a good one. And we've sued the Superdome multiple times over all kinds of stuff. And. And yeah, we just, you know, people. People come to us with their problems and we'll, you know, I sued, you know, a bunch of, you know, restaurants and liquor stores for not having the right kind of ramps and all that. All that's important.
• 23:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, people, you know, it's. The law is the law, and they're supposed to comply with the law, and that's because we actually have people that. That need that stuff, you know. Anyway, well, we're gonna get into all that, but let's go back a little bit.
• 23:25
  Speaker D: Sure.
• 23:25
  Speaker A: You're not from New Orleans?
• 23:26
  Speaker D: No, no.
• 23:27
  Speaker A: So tell us about. Where do you. Where were you? Where'd you grow up?
• 23:31
  Speaker D: Sure. I was born in Detroit, Michigan.
• 23:33
  Speaker A: Huh. Okay.
• 23:33
  Speaker D: And my parents did the most wonderful thing for me when I was one year old was they moved.
• 23:37
  Speaker B: Did you watch an above ground pool?
• 23:40
  Speaker D: No, we moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
• 23:42
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 23:42
  Speaker D: Where I could see the sun. And then I ended up going to Tulane as an undergrad.
• 23:49
  Speaker A: Well, Fort Lauderdale. Let's not rush through this part.
• 23:51
  Speaker C: Sorry, sorry.
• 23:52
  Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:53
  Speaker A: Fort Lauderdale. What's that like?
• 23:55
  Speaker D: You know, it's like any other for you.
• 23:57
  Speaker A: I mean, how old were you when you left Detroit?
• 24:00
  Speaker D: I won. So my entire childhood was. Was in Fort Lauderdale.
• 24:03
  Speaker A: It wasn't such a hardscrabble life for you?
• 24:05
  Speaker D: No.
• 24:05
  Speaker A: In Detroit?
• 24:06
  Speaker D: No.
• 24:07
  Speaker A: The Motor City?
• 24:08
  Speaker D: No.
• 24:08
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 24:09
  Speaker D: No, not at all.
• 24:09
  Speaker A: Okay. No.
• 24:10
  Speaker D: Fort Lauderdale. You know, it was suburban Fort Lauderdale, so it was like any other suburbs. You know, we'd go to the beach a lot. We'd go to Miami a lot.
• 24:18
  Speaker A: Now, as a Florida native, shall we say, Manny and I have always talked about how Florida is the weirdest state in the country. We're not the only people to make this observation.
• 24:27
  Speaker D: No, it's definitely. There's. You've just got this weird mix of, you know, northern Florida is the south and then South Florida. You have just all different kinds of, you know, people from all over the country move down there to sort of either give up or do their one last shot.
• 24:44
  Speaker A: Right.
• 24:44
  Speaker D: You know, and then, you know, then you have the international flavors as well.
• 24:48
  Speaker B: Now, why did your parents move there?
• 24:50
  Speaker D: My dad is an eye surgeon or was. He's a retired eye surgeon. So if you want to go somewhere where people have cataracts.
• 24:59
  Speaker A: Oh, there you go.
• 25:00
  Speaker D: Go to South Florida, baby. Lots of business. Paid my way through Tulane.
• 25:04
  Speaker A: Thanks.
• 25:05
  Speaker D: Thanks, dad.
• 25:06
  Speaker A: He understands the market.
• 25:07
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 25:08
  Speaker A: Very good. So you go to public school school down there?
• 25:12
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 25:13
  Speaker D: Went to a public school.
• 25:16
  Speaker A: You have siblings?
• 25:17
  Speaker D: I have an older brother named George who lives in Albany, which. It's funny, we were talking about the Austin, Keep Austin weird. And they're like, Albany has a slogan that's something like, just keep Albany normal or something like that. So my brother. My brother lives in the most normal place in the world and. And I live in New Orleans and so, you know. Right, right, right.
• 25:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. A lot of space between y'.
• 25:45
  Speaker B: All.
• 25:46
  Speaker A: I was gonna say several thousand miles.
• 25:49
  Speaker D: Yeah, he's a professor at Union College.
• 25:51
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 25:52
  Speaker D: Yeah. So nice. And. And then I went to Tulane to follow a girl that didn't go to Tulane.
• 25:59
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 26:00
  Speaker B: She.
• 26:00
  Speaker A: You thought she was gonna.
• 26:01
  Speaker D: We were gonna go to. And then she was like, I'm not gonna go anymore. And I wouldn't have even applied this.
• 26:04
  Speaker A: The old switcheroo.
• 26:05
  Speaker D: Switcheroo. Yeah. But it's. I'm glad. I'm glad the switcheroo happened because I wouldn't have applied to Tulane. I wouldn't have been here.
• 26:11
  Speaker B: So where did she end up going?
• 26:13
  Speaker D: She went to Emory, cuz her sisters went to Emory and it was, quote, a better school.
• 26:18
  Speaker A: Huh.
• 26:19
  Speaker B: So.
• 26:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, could be.
• 26:20
  Speaker D: What can you do?
• 26:21
  Speaker A: Could be. Yeah. That's where the guy, Scott Ploche went to Emory.
• 26:24
  Speaker D: Okay.
• 26:26
  Speaker B: It all.
• 26:26
  Speaker A: It all. It all falls back on itself. It sure does, but. So you come to Tulane? Yep. Had you been in New Orleans before?
• 26:34
  Speaker D: No. In fact, I went to visit on, you know, with my family and we stayed in the. In the Quarter and Urge Overkill was playing at. At the House of Blues.
• 26:47
  Speaker A: That's a name you don't hear.
• 26:48
  Speaker D: And this is like 1993, and I'm a senior in high school and I'm like, hey, mom, dad, can I go see Urge Overkill at the House of Blues? And they said, yes.
• 26:56
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 26:56
  Speaker D: So I went and I, you know, was drinking because of the drinking age was 18, and, you know, I wasn't used to that.
• 27:04
  Speaker A: Right.
• 27:04
  Speaker D: And I was crowd surfing and I fell and I rolled my ankle a little bit. And so like the next day on the tour, the two lane tour, I'm like hungover and limping and my dad's all pissed off at me. It's like, welcome To New Orleans. This place is awesome.
• 27:20
  Speaker A: Didn't take you long. I want to come back.
• 27:22
  Speaker B: Back.
• 27:22
  Speaker A: It didn't take you long? You already hung over and injured.
• 27:25
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 27:26
  Speaker D: After big hit, they did a cover of. Of Neil Diamond's Girl, you'll be a woman soon. Yeah, that was in the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. They had other. They had other hits that I don't
• 27:40
  Speaker A: recall, but they were, they were like one of those Chicago next big thing bands. You know, they're a wicker park, you know, hot band.
• 27:47
  Speaker D: They had a great look.
• 27:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, they had a great.
• 27:49
  Speaker D: They looked fantastic. Yeah.
• 27:52
  Speaker A: If you like that. Sort of.
• 27:53
  Speaker D: Yeah, you know, they're good looking boys. You know, what can you. What can you do?
• 27:56
  Speaker C: Sure, sure.
• 27:58
  Speaker A: Wow. I love. That's a great memory.
• 28:00
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 28:00
  Speaker A: It's just so weird. So you. So you're sold on, on Tulane and your parents were they. They were not sufficiently repulsed to say you couldn't go?
• 28:10
  Speaker D: No, I think I. Yeah, they were. They're great. Very supportive. You know, they get, you get to the. They took us to. They took me to orientation and they said that, you know, if you have a keg in your dorm room, you have to tell your ra.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:24
  Speaker D: So that was like. Yeah. All right, here we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:28
  Speaker B: Can't even have candles in your dorm room.
• 28:31
  Speaker A: Really?
• 28:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't want anything like that.
• 28:33
  Speaker D: Sure.
• 28:34
  Speaker B: So let me ask you a question real quick.
• 28:35
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 28:35
  Speaker B: This was what, in the mid-90s?
• 28:37
  Speaker D: Yeah. 94.
• 28:38
  Speaker B: Okay, what was. I work at Tule.
• 28:40
  Speaker D: Okay.
• 28:40
  Speaker B: So what was the tuition back then?
• 28:42
  Speaker D: You know, I don't even remember. It was. I mean, it was expensive.
• 28:45
  Speaker A: I think I remember because my wife was working there. I think it was $15,000 at the time because I remember thinking, $15,000. Jesus Christ. That's so much money. That's in. Who could ever pay that? Now it's what, 80?
• 29:01
  Speaker B: It's 92,000.
• 29:03
  Speaker A: 92.
• 29:04
  Speaker D: Jesus Christ. No, I remember my first, my first off campus dorm. I split it with my buddy and we were literally like two blocks from. From. I was a liberal arts major and so the Newcomb. Newcomb. Newcomb hall or whatever it's called.
• 29:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 29:22
  Speaker D: I was like two blocks from it. All my classes were in this one building and my rent was like $500 that I split with my, my buddy. And like we were kind of. We're kind of ashamed that we paid
• 29:32
  Speaker A: so much cuz a lot of our
• 29:34
  Speaker D: friends had like shittier apartments where they were paying like a buck 35amonth.
• 29:37
  Speaker A: Right.
• 29:37
  Speaker D: And we're like, we were paying like 250 each. Cuz we were like kind of spoiled kids, you know? Yeah.
• 29:42
  Speaker A: But you, we're so close.
• 29:43
  Speaker D: We had a nice pad. It was so close, you know. Yeah.
• 29:45
  Speaker A: It's worth it.
• 29:46
  Speaker B: Crazy.
• 29:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, I know, it's, it's, it's really shocking. So.
• 29:51
  Speaker D: It was 30 years ago.
• 29:52
  Speaker A: It was, it was. But it seems like yesterday to me. Even though yesterday seems like a long time. So during this time you, you get involved with wtol, the radio station. You're a DJ there, correct?
• 30:07
  Speaker D: Yeah, I started as an intern and then I got a radio show from 2 to 6 in the morning.
• 30:12
  Speaker A: Right.
• 30:12
  Speaker D: On Friday nights into Saturday mornings. And then every, every time, every, every show at I think around 3am or 4am I would, I would do Andy Unplugged and I'd bring this acoustic guitar. I'm a terrible guitar player. I can, I, I can play the chords, you know, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, some minors and. But once, you know, once I could impress a girl with my guitar playing, I didn't get better, you know, I don't know any licks. So I would just do like.
• 30:40
  Speaker A: You're better off.
• 30:41
  Speaker D: Yeah, no, totally. I would just do like, I don't know, Violent Femme songs and Nirvana. Unplug songs.
• 30:47
  Speaker A: That must have worked, huh?
• 30:48
  Speaker D: Yeah, it was fun. It was stupid.
• 30:49
  Speaker B: Different kind of lick, huh?
• 30:50
  Speaker D: Yeah, no, there was no, no, nothing. No, they were not, they were not impressed.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Really. See, I would have, I would have thought differently.
• 30:59
  Speaker D: No, that was the goal. That was the goal.
• 31:01
  Speaker A: Right.
• 31:01
  Speaker D: But no, and then, and so I did that and then I, I was co music director with Anthony Del Rosario.
• 31:08
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. Our good buddy Anthony Del Rosario. So you were there watching him promote 300 shows at the, at the Mermaid Lounge?
• 31:17
  Speaker D: Yes, and the mermaid and his 518 Bordeaux. His shout out to his kitchen where we saw the Apples in stereo and some other bands were playing were really great. I did like the new music show and then I ended up doing the Mermaid Hour with Jeff.
• 31:33
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 31:33
  Speaker D: Because I did the local hour.
• 31:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, I remember that.
• 31:36
  Speaker D: So yeah, we would pick live songs from the recordings at the Mermaid Lounge and play them and talk about basically a freshman. An infomercial for the Mermaid Lounge. Which is fine by me. I was having a good time.
• 31:47
  Speaker A: The Mermaid Lounge we've talked about before was such a, you know, such a ground zero for our generation, generation after mine and just such a disparate bunch of artists and musicians, but all using this place as really the anchor for this incredible scene that blossomed Yeah, I
• 32:12
  Speaker D: mean, I, you know, I was more into the, the rock bands and listened to like, you know, funk bands or more avant stuff. Although I did go to plenty of Rob Cambry things where somebody's like farting with a saxophone and you're supposed to not laugh, you know, but, you know, give it your best shout out to Rob Canberra.
• 32:31
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 32:31
  Speaker D: Love the guy, but yeah, it's really great. You know, you talk to people who, who are. You know, you go to these Mermaid reunions and you see all the people and it's really nice. And it was a. I mean, I saw a million incredible out of town bands there. Like the Dirty Three played there.
• 32:47
  Speaker A: The Geraniums opened for the Dirty Three the first time, okay. And they loved us so much. When they came back again, they said, well, can the Geraniums open for us again?
• 32:56
  Speaker D: Well, you guys are super simpatico. The geraniums and the 33.
• 33:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but, but like you're saying. Yeah, bands that in other towns would be selling out like a house of blues or something. In New Orleans, since nobody know, you know, it's a different kind of scene. They wouldn't get a play without a Mermaid lounge. They wouldn't even stop here, you know.
• 33:16
  Speaker D: Yeah, no, it was super fun. And, and, you know, other, other, other venues have sort of filled that role, whether it was the Circle Bar, you know, or the, even the Saturn Bar. But it's. Yeah, it's just different. You know, I had hair back then, so that's why.
• 33:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, me too.
• 33:31
  Speaker D: Maybe I wax nostalgic.
• 33:32
  Speaker B: Right, right.
• 33:33
  Speaker A: Well, let's move on. So, so you, you, you graduate from Tulane.
• 33:38
  Speaker B: You.
• 33:39
  Speaker A: You decide that you're not going to go try to make money with this liberal arts degree?
• 33:49
  Speaker D: Well, yeah, kind of.
• 33:50
  Speaker A: So I had to go to law school.
• 33:51
  Speaker D: Yeah. So I was, I was managing some bands, you know, I managed Burn Version. You remember Burn Version?
• 33:55
  Speaker C: Oh, sure, yeah.
• 33:56
  Speaker D: Hotchkiss. You know what I mean?
• 33:58
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:58
  Speaker D: I was trying to. Trying to be a music biz guy, okay. And I realized that the only people in the music business that I thought knew what they were talking about were the lawyers. So I was like, oh, maybe I'll become a music lawyer.
• 34:09
  Speaker B: All right.
• 34:10
  Speaker D: So I went to Brooklyn Law School and I was able to intern at Matador Records in their legal department. Yeah. And at Universal Motown. That was super, super fantastic.
• 34:21
  Speaker A: They had that band Pizzicato Five that I loved. Japanese band.
• 34:29
  Speaker D: I mean, they had everybody. I mean, they're just a massive Pavement and Yola Tango and they still have great bands. And so that was my whole goal, was to get internships and get them. And I ended up getting my dream job after graduation. I was working in house at EMI Music Publishing. So I was like literally working on the Beatles and the Stones.
• 34:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:50
  Speaker D: You know, and like they had the Motown catalog and you know, they. I was. It was a really cool job and. But I wasn't making a lot of money because it was such a poorly paid job because there was such a high sought after job.
• 35:03
  Speaker A: That was after you were already an attorney.
• 35:05
  Speaker D: Yeah, correct.
• 35:05
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 35:06
  Speaker D: So I sort of skimmed through law school. We don't need to talk about.
• 35:08
  Speaker A: Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so you stayed up there still living in Brooklyn or living in. In Manhattan?
• 35:13
  Speaker D: Yeah, I was living in Brooklyn and it was actually really cool. I was able to see the come up of like bands like the Strokes and the Walkman and the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Interpol. And that was pretty wild to see those bands and small clubs as they're coming up.
• 35:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, that was kind of a little revival. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was a moment there in New
• 35:31
  Speaker D: York, so I was super lucky to witness that. And then I stuck around and got that job at emi, but I wasn't getting paid much. And I remember it was like snowing in April and I was just like, this is not, you know, so my. My then fiance, now wife, Jess, she's from western Florida, I'm from eastern Florida, but we get along. And I've told that joke too many times.
• 35:59
  Speaker A: I like it. I don't know what it means.
• 36:02
  Speaker D: Yeah, you know, whatever.
• 36:03
  Speaker B: So that's western, like in the middle. Middle of the state.
• 36:05
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 36:06
  Speaker D: She's from St. Pete.
• 36:07
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 36:09
  Speaker D: And so we visited New Orleans together, you know, when I was. We were still living up there and we decided we're gonna move back to New Orleans. Okay. And so I would rather live in New Orleans and just sort of be a lawyer than live in New York and have my dream job. You know, just. That was a priority that I.
• 36:30
  Speaker A: Thank you. Means a lot to New Orleans.
• 36:32
  Speaker B: So there was no way to stay in New York and get up.
• 36:36
  Speaker D: You know, it was so expensive. Everything was. This was like 2000. This is right before Katrina.
• 36:41
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 36:42
  Speaker D: And I just didn't see a path forward. And the pull of New Orleans was strong. You know, a lot of people leave and they think they can leave and they don't, you know.
• 36:51
  Speaker A: Right.
• 36:51
  Speaker D: And that was me. So the morning that we loaded up our truck in Brooklyn, Katrina hit.
• 36:57
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 36:58
  Speaker D: So we were like literally watching Wwl in bed the night before on like a laptop and just being like, what the fuck? Oh my God.
• 37:08
  Speaker B: So did you have a place that you've already rented?
• 37:11
  Speaker D: Yeah, we had a place on Crete street, right by the fairgrounds. And we had rented it out. We, you know, the whole thing. And, you know, so we ended up moving in with my parents in Florida. They had a little extra room and then we visited over, I want to say Thanksgiving, Ish.
• 37:27
  Speaker C: Maybe.
• 37:28
  Speaker D: And we were like, yeah, we're gonna come. Anyway, so I took the Louisiana bar exam. So when we were in Florida, I studied for Louisiana Bar. My wife applied to UNO for their MFA program. And so that's kind of what we did in Florida. And I passed the bar. She got into uno and hey, here we are.
• 37:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 37:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, the city was cleaned out, so. Yeah.
• 37:54
  Speaker D: They let anybody in?
• 37:55
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:56
  Speaker A: I mean, you know, it's like getting in on the ground floor, so to speak.
• 38:00
  Speaker D: Sure.
• 38:02
  Speaker A: So, so you, you move here then obviously the city's in flux. It takes a while to you find a place to live. How do you get into ADA work here in New Orleans?
• 38:15
  Speaker D: So I started off working at a law firm. Just getting a job at a law firm that did class action lawsuits.
• 38:23
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 38:24
  Speaker D: And I was doing the Big Brother little brother program. And my little brother, his mother and grandmother were both wheelchair users. And a buddy of mine who worked at that law firm with me left to do ADA work for some guys in Florida. And he explained it to me and I said, well, that sounds great. I want to do that. So I started. So I ended up actually quitting from that law firm and did like personal injury, you know, car crashes and ADA stuff. And I've been kind of doing the same thing ever since.
• 38:55
  Speaker A: Starting your own firm? Yeah, yeah.
• 38:57
  Speaker D: So I've been really lucky with that, with, with that stuff.
• 39:00
  Speaker A: So, yeah, you know, that's. And it's, it's obviously such important work. You know, it's the fact that it had gone on so long with nobody doing it shows you.
• 39:12
  Speaker D: No, it's, it's crazy. And it's, it's, it's. If I can get on my side soapbox for a minute.
• 39:16
  Speaker A: Go ahead.
• 39:17
  Speaker D: You know, the ADA was passed in 1991. And I think. And they still, there are places they call places of public accommodation, which is basically, you're open to the public, right. And there's like all over the state, there's places that don't have, don't just don't have parking, don't have ramps, bathrooms are up a Step, you know, Right.
• 39:38
  Speaker A: It's only one step.
• 39:40
  Speaker D: And so the way the law was driving, drafted was that it was a compromise between the business community and the disabled community. And they said that we, the business community, will self regulate and we will abide by these rules about, you know, a ramp can only be 8.33% and the 36 inches has to be how wide a path is, all these things. Right, we'll agree to that and we'll just do it ourselves. But if we don't do it, you can sue us. So that's where I come in, is I file the lawsuits that on behalf of wheelchair users who can't get into places. And then the business owners get really mad, and then they like lash out against me because they got sued. Right. That says you're discriminating. Well, I'm not a discriminator. Right. You got discriminating against a guy in a wheelchair. Well, I'm definitely not that kind of guy. I'm a nice person who owns this liquor store that doesn't have a fucking ramp, you know? And so then they gotta lash out at somebody and they're gonna lash out at the guy in the chair. So they lash out at me.
• 40:40
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 40:40
  Speaker D: So that's like, I really enjoy the job. But every, like, I don't know, every month or so you get a cowboy lawyer who's like, this is bullshit. You know, Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. And it's like, dude, I don't know what to tell you. There's no ramp, you know, I'm not suing you. Cause the parking space is 2 inches too short.
• 40:59
  Speaker A: Right, right, right, right, right.
• 41:00
  Speaker D: But whatever.
• 41:01
  Speaker A: Not nitpicking here.
• 41:02
  Speaker B: What about, though, don't you get angry sometimes when you see these people with the handicap stickers and they're parking in their handicap space and they walk out of the car and there's nothing wrong with them. That happens a lot.
• 41:14
  Speaker D: I. I will.
• 41:15
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 41:15
  Speaker D: My short answer is yes. The longer answer is all my clients in chairs say there should be like a special wheelchair only space. And then there's other people, you know, if you got a bad leg or whatever, you know, you deserve to park closer to the entrance, you know? But the people in chairs need that stripey area next to it. It's called the access aisle. So they can open the door of their vehicle all the way and then pull out their wheelchair and transfer into their chair. Because without that stripey area, they're kind of fucked. Right? And especially if you, if you park in A conventional thing in a conventional space and you have that room, but then someone parks too close next to you, you can't get back into your car. So it's. Yeah, so it's like super necessary, you know, like. And people don't really realize that.
• 41:58
  Speaker A: Oh man, you're doing.
• 41:59
  Speaker B: What about those people who park in our spaces though? The handicap people?
• 42:03
  Speaker D: They're. They're allowed. Yeah, they're allowed.
• 42:06
  Speaker A: Manny thinks they shouldn't be.
• 42:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 42:08
  Speaker A: Anyway, well, this is fascinating. We're about to turn the corner and get into your New Orleans music business park. But it's about that time, Manny.
• 42:16
  Speaker B: Yes. We'll be right back.
• 42:17
  Speaker C: Everywhere I let the sound of people Cuz summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street Bo. But then what can a B boy do? Set the sing for rock and roll band and sleeping on dead time there just space for street fighting. Hey, think the time is right for violent revolution there, Man. What that poem for you. 50 cents for Rock Road fam in the safe be London town There's no place for street fight, man. No.
• 43:45
  Speaker A: And we're back. Back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. I am Renee Coleman, back with our guest, the great Andy Bizer. Now Andy, you are a listener to the show, so you're familiar with the idea that we are a listener supported operation here. We have The Venmo and PayPal links in the show notes of every show and our devoted listeners will use us links to bias cocktails, support our operating costs and you know, it hasn't happened recently but I have faith in the future and so you know, I want to alert every one of those.
• 44:22
  Speaker B: People are struggling.
• 44:23
  Speaker A: People are struggling. I understand, I understand. Times are tight. Also we have the link for the troubled men podcast T shirts right there. And it's not too late to make those Christmas era purchases. It's can be a sluggish supply chain sometimes, Andy. But also we have the, the Patreon page link right there. Takes all the guesswork out of supporting the podcast and follow us on social media, Facebook, Instagram and rate, review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to us. Give us five stars. Cost you. Nothing helps us a lot.
• 44:59
  Speaker B: Are we still number one and in Serbia?
• 45:03
  Speaker A: Serbia, as far as I know, I haven't heard that we've fallen, but I haven't really been checking the charts.
• 45:08
  Speaker B: We're number one in Serbia.
• 45:10
  Speaker A: I'm just, I'm just going with, with the last, last news I heard and we're, we're fourth in Louisiana overall again. According to D.J. somebody and Andy, here's. Here's a couple of troubleman podcast speakers. So much I often forget, but I remember this time. Also, I want to alert the troubled nation out there that I'll be out on the road with the iguanas in New Mexico, Colorado, and in August from the 18th to the 30th, and then I'll be up in Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest with Sunny Landreth September 1st through the 6th.
• 45:45
  Speaker D: That's a fine place to be in August and September.
• 45:47
  Speaker A: We'll see. We'll see. You know, it's a couple of weeks ago, you know, they had this heat dome over the entire nation except for New Orleans. Like we were 10 degrees cooler than, than Minneapolis. So it's, it's hard to predict these days, but it should be nice. It'll be nice being out there. It'll be nice. You know, I love Colorado, I love New Mexico, the high desert, you know, God. God lives in the desert, Andy. Good to know that's where you can hear this. Well, he lives everywhere, but that's where you can really hear the small, still voice of God. So anyway, enough of that, back to our guest, please.
• 46:24
  Speaker B: Enough of that.
• 46:25
  Speaker A: The great Mr. Andy Viser.
• 46:29
  Speaker B: I thought he was up there.
• 46:30
  Speaker A: Well, everywhere.
• 46:32
  Speaker B: Down on us everywhere, judging us everywhere. No, well, no, that's like Santa Claus judges us.
• 46:38
  Speaker A: Many aspects. He's making a list.
• 46:40
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 46:41
  Speaker A: Who's naughty and who's nice? That's not, that's not my concept. Anyway, anyway, back to our guest, the great Andy Bizer. So you're back in New Orleans, successful ADA attorney, doing God's work, but you still have the pull of the music biz.
• 46:58
  Speaker D: Sure, yeah. The plan was to just like music and love music. And then I went to the Big Top. You remember the Big Top?
• 47:07
  Speaker A: Oh yeah.
• 47:07
  Speaker D: Cleo Street. And I saw why are we building such a big ship?
• 47:12
  Speaker A: Uh huh.
• 47:12
  Speaker D: And there was a band opening for them called Hooray for the Riff Raff.
• 47:16
  Speaker A: Right.
• 47:16
  Speaker D: And I had never heard of them, I didn't know nothing about them and, and the singer was just incredible. And these songs that they were singing were so, so melodic and such just well crafted songs that I thought they were like old timey songs that I just didn't know, you know, like Hoagie Carmichael or some shit, you know, like standards that I don't know.
• 47:40
  Speaker B: Right.
• 47:40
  Speaker D: And so, you know, I went over to the singer and I was just like, wow, that was incredible. Like, what songs were those? And she's like, yeah, I wrote those songs. And I was like, cool. Do you have a. Do you have a CD or something? And so they look in their purse, you know, and. And they pull out this, like, CDR that's like, all kind of scratched up. There's no, like. There's no case. There's not even, like, a thing. It's just a cd, a loose CD and a purse.
• 48:06
  Speaker B: Right.
• 48:06
  Speaker D: And I was like, can I buy that? And they're like, yeah, 20 bucks. And I was like, sold. Let's go. You know, and so I bought it and I listened to it, and it was just. It was incredible. These, like, you know, six or seven songs that ended up being on the first album. So, you know, and, you know, songs like Bricks and the Junebug Waltz and Daniella and Here It Comes and all. I remember the songs, you know, they struck me. And so, you know, Linda was. Linda Seguera is the singer, songwriter, you know, basically, it's their band, you know, and. Well.
• 48:42
  Speaker A: But true. But I don't know. I don't want to interrupt you, but please interrupt me. But to my awareness, it was. It was the singer, but also a collective. It was kind of a front porch bunch. Bunch of people had started in the Ninth Ward and By Water and.
• 48:58
  Speaker D: No, Walt had a lot to do with the sound. And. And, yeah, Walt McClel, he was. He's been on, right? No, no, no, I. I get him on the show. Well, he's great.
• 49:06
  Speaker A: Okay. But, I mean, Casey McAllister.
• 49:08
  Speaker D: Casey. That was. That was later, but, yeah. Okay.
• 49:10
  Speaker B: All right.
• 49:11
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, you know, Casey.
• 49:12
  Speaker D: Casey was awesome. Yeah.
• 49:13
  Speaker A: I mean, anyway, very cool, kind of organic operation.
• 49:19
  Speaker D: And so this was really early on, and so. So I didn't know if they wanted to, like, be a musician, have a career, just sing these songs and train hop, you know?
• 49:31
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 49:32
  Speaker D: So we met at Mimi's, and I just talked to Alinda, and I was like, hey, you know, I don't know if you want to do this for a living, like, be a musician and be a songwriter and have bands and stuff, or if you want to just mess around and they're like, yeah, I want to. I want to go for this. And I was like, well, I'd love to work with you. Okay. So, yeah. So I ended up managing them, and. And it was. It was really fantastic. It was a wonderful experience. And, you know, to be able to, as someone who was in the music scene in the 90s, to sort of take a band, Right. And get them signed to a big label like ato, it really was a real Great sense of accomplishment. Just because, I mean, you know, as a music fan.
• 50:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 50:16
  Speaker A: You were into.
• 50:16
  Speaker D: Right. And to be able to help this person bring their songs to more people, because I really believe in them, you know?
• 50:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah.
• 50:24
  Speaker D: I still do.
• 50:25
  Speaker A: And I remember running into you at Jazz Fest when I was dropping off iguana CDs, and you were dropping off Hooray for the Riff Raff CDs, and you, like, gave me one of each. You know, you're out there working.
• 50:37
  Speaker D: I was like, yeah, we were. It was fun. Yeah, no, it was fun. It was. They were, you know. Yeah. And, you know, I had to stop. I had to stop managing them when I started having kids because I was doing much more work as they were getting bigger, and yet they weren't making a whole lot more money. So it wasn't like I had to, you know, And I think they were ready for someone more connected nationally to sort of guide them.
• 51:02
  Speaker A: Well, you know, I've spoken about this on the podcast before, as is that people in the music business, they think the music business is the most important thing and career and, you know, your goals, your achievements until you have a child, and then you realize that, oh, what was eye level for me as career wise is now somewhere around my knees and my children are somewhere two feet above my head as far as my priorities. That's if you're going to be a good parent.
• 51:34
  Speaker D: Sure.
• 51:35
  Speaker A: Not everybody.
• 51:36
  Speaker D: That's a very good caveat.
• 51:37
  Speaker A: Not everybody does. Take that. But that was my experience. I assume that that was your experience.
• 51:43
  Speaker D: Yes. I prioritize being a father. Yes, yes. Which you go without saying, but it doesn't All. Doesn't always. No.
• 51:50
  Speaker A: So besides hooray for the riff raff, you also had a managerial and mentoring or whatever shepherding relationship with the great King Louie. Tell. Tell the. Tell the nation. Who doesn't know about King Louis? I mean, give us something.
• 52:07
  Speaker D: King Louis is a brilliant.
• 52:10
  Speaker A: He's a phenomenon.
• 52:11
  Speaker D: Troubled man.
• 52:13
  Speaker A: Would have been a good person. I'd never got him on the podcast.
• 52:15
  Speaker D: He wouldn't have stopped talking.
• 52:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, of course.
• 52:17
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 52:18
  Speaker A: Well, you know, I. So I first saw him playing with the Royal Pendletons. I remember them seeing. He was the very raw and energetic drummer, very frenetic player. Then, you know, years went by, got a little bit more, you know, seasoned, shall we say? The next time I really have a recollection is Alex Chilton's memorial service at Bob Tannen's.
• 52:43
  Speaker D: I was there. Yeah.
• 52:44
  Speaker A: And Bob Tannen is reading some passage and we're all really listening. And King Louie starts heckling.
• 52:51
  Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah.
• 52:53
  Speaker A: An 80 year old Bob town. It's going. Alex wouldn't have liked this. He would have thought this was. I'm going, what the. Get this guy out of here.
• 53:03
  Speaker D: Yeah, because I didn't know Alex. I mean, I didn't know Alex. I met him once or twice, but
• 53:08
  Speaker A: he's a close friend.
• 53:09
  Speaker D: Yeah, I. You would know better than Louis.
• 53:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, I just thought, you know, okay, that's what Louie's like. But you tell the piece. So he, he was in many bands. He was a drummer, he was a songwriter.
• 53:22
  Speaker D: He was awesome. I mean, he was, he. He was a. A brilliant songwriter. Yeah. But he, you know, he, he was in that band, the Exploding Hearts. And then right before he, right after he left, they got into a van accident and. And three out of the four guys died.
• 53:37
  Speaker A: Crazy, man.
• 53:37
  Speaker D: And that band is like massively influential. And he wrote like the biggest songs. Jack White just reissued their. Their. Their only album. But then also he like super influential on like Jay Retard and the whole, you know, garage, you know, Memphis New Orleans garage rock thing.
• 53:55
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 53:56
  Speaker D: Spawned some, some bands. He's just like, sort of.
• 53:58
  Speaker A: He's like goner fest.
• 54:00
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 54:00
  Speaker D: That whole thing.
• 54:01
  Speaker A: And Pipeline.
• 54:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:02
  Speaker D: You know, the, the King Louie One man band was a lot of fun to watch. Yeah, no, he was great. He was unmanageable. But I don't think I ever really managed him officially, but I tried. And like. So for instance, like we said about the podcast, like, he would have, he would have come on the podcast and then like an hour after you're done taping, he'd be like, we can't use this. We're not doing this. No, no, can't, can't. Because I said da ba ba ba. And then, you know, so he was kind of like that as well. But no confounding. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, a wonderful dude and a lot of fun and you know, for me, just as someone who is not making music, my career, it's something that you want to be a part of and like share, you know, like, that's kind of how I've always sort of been. Is like a proselytizer of the music that I like, you know, And I, you know, you just wanted to share it with people and you're like, this is really good.
• 54:55
  Speaker A: Right?
• 54:56
  Speaker D: Come on, everybody. This is great. You don't think this is great? Hype. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:01
  Speaker A: Cheerleader.
• 55:02
  Speaker D: So, yeah, so that's kind of. That was the extent of it with Louis and Then after he passed, I'm really proud of the fact that I was able to shepherd along an unreleased album called Harahan Fats, which he had envisioned as a double cassette. And so we put out the double cassette version through Goner Records, which he was sort of their sort of unofficial mascot or that's a guy, Eric Friedel.
• 55:26
  Speaker A: I want to get him on the show.
• 55:27
  Speaker D: Yeah, he's great. He'd be on it.
• 55:29
  Speaker A: No, I ran into him, you know, ran into him going to the T. Rex a couple of years ago. Yeah, he's in town now. We're.
• 55:37
  Speaker D: Yeah, so he, you know, we were able to put that. And we also put out a, you know, one. A one, one record version as well of sort of the best songs. And so that came out. I. Time is, I don't even know, but several years years ago. And I'm really glad that I was able to help. Help get that done.
• 55:54
  Speaker A: Right on.
• 55:55
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 55:55
  Speaker A: So Andy just. You're just, you know, doing. Doing all these very selfless acts. It's, you know, you're repairing the world.
• 56:03
  Speaker D: Well, thank you. Thank you. No, no, it's.
• 56:05
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 56:05
  Speaker D: It's just. It's, you know, we're doing that Louie stuff was a lot of fun and. And I miss the guy, you know?
• 56:12
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 56:13
  Speaker B: So. Yeah.
• 56:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, man, that's. That's the thing.
• 56:15
  Speaker D: When you.
• 56:16
  Speaker A: You get to our age and. Well, you're younger than me and Manny,
• 56:20
  Speaker D: but a lot younger.
• 56:22
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 56:25
  Speaker B: But some. For some reason.
• 56:26
  Speaker D: No, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I did lose my hair. Good one.
• 56:31
  Speaker A: Well, I don't know. But you'll get there. God willing.
• 56:37
  Speaker D: Yeah, hopefully. Yeah. I just turned 50.
• 56:40
  Speaker A: Oh, well, so you're only 10 years younger than us. 12 years younger than us. We're about to be. We're about to be 63, Manny.
• 56:47
  Speaker B: Yes, I know.
• 56:48
  Speaker A: It's coming right up. Manny and I are one month apart.
• 56:50
  Speaker D: Wow. I did not know that.
• 56:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're both pre Kennedy assassination.
• 56:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 56:59
  Speaker A: Which I have a theory that everyone in our grade is like, so I went to Ben Franklin. Our year lost spirit week every single year, including when we were seniors.
• 57:12
  Speaker D: Oh, wow.
• 57:12
  Speaker A: Cuz we just didn't care. I attribute this apathy to attachment disorder that we suffered in the wake of the Kennedy assassination because all of the adults who were our caretakers just checked out.
• 57:29
  Speaker D: How old were you when it happened?
• 57:30
  Speaker A: Like two months old.
• 57:33
  Speaker D: Oh, yeah. Okay.
• 57:33
  Speaker A: He was a month old.
• 57:34
  Speaker D: Okay.
• 57:35
  Speaker A: And. But for the next year, they just emotionally checked out. So we're just infants there in our. Our cribs, you know, not understanding.
• 57:43
  Speaker B: Well, my parents were Nixon fans, so they never checked out. They were actually kind of happy.
• 57:47
  Speaker A: Okay. It was more of a celebratory atmosphere over at the. At the Chevrolet house.
• 57:55
  Speaker B: Maybe. I checked out, sure.
• 57:57
  Speaker A: Anyway, you still. You. You. You took on the. The engram. The scar of the collective experience, I would say, because you. You exhibit many of the same characteristics. But that's. Anyway, back to you. That's okay.
• 58:14
  Speaker D: But we digress.
• 58:15
  Speaker A: Artist management is not the extent of your musical involvement. You're a performer as well.
• 58:21
  Speaker D: Of talent. I'm the talent.
• 58:23
  Speaker A: And so actually, when I was down getting another round of drinks on our break there, somebody was like, who's your guest? And I started to say. And they said, the guy from the Shitty Stone. Andy Biden? I said, yeah. Oh, wow. And. And somebody else next to me goes, who's the Shitty Stones? And the. And the bartender goes, they're great.
• 58:44
  Speaker D: That's nice.
• 58:46
  Speaker A: Anyway, so you have some fans here.
• 58:48
  Speaker D: Wow, that's great. I'll just sign some autographs.
• 58:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, right, right. And the guy was, you know. Anyway, so tell us about your. Your life as a performer.
• 58:55
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 58:56
  Speaker D: So, like I said, I played guitar in high school and I went to a. I went to a summer camp for rich Jews, pretty much. And Adam Levine from Maroon 5 was there called French Woods.
• 59:10
  Speaker A: Okay. Where was that located?
• 59:12
  Speaker D: It was in upstate New York in Hancock, New York.
• 59:14
  Speaker B: I don't understand why Jews would want to go to camp with all the history, you know, I just don't understand that because I had a lot of friends in la, Jewish kids who all went to camp.
• 59:25
  Speaker A: That's the thing. It's a thing. That's how they all, you know, learn Hebrew.
• 59:29
  Speaker D: It was not a religious camp. There was performing arts was part of the thing, and there was a thing called Rock Shop. And so I was in a little rock, and Adam Levine was a year younger than me.
• 59:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 59:41
  Speaker D: And so my band was cooler than his band.
• 59:43
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 59:44
  Speaker A: And his probably still is.
• 59:46
  Speaker D: Fuck, yeah. And so we would go to other camps and perform. And so my band and his band would go and we would form a super group.
• 59:54
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 59:55
  Speaker D: So I would do duets with Adam Levine. I don't know if you know the song the man in the Box by Alison Chains.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker D: Anyway, there's a low part and a high part, and I would sing the low part, the. I'm the man in the box. And he would sing the Feed My Eyes because the dude can sing like, say what you will about. Yeah, no, him, the tattoos, it's such a turn off. It's, you know. Anyway, anyway, so, so I, you know, I like anyone else, I did some. Did some rocking, you know what I mean?
• 1:00:26
  Speaker A: And that's pretty hilarious.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker D: So it was a lot of fun. And so fast forward, I don't know, 30 or 20, 20, whatever years. The Rolling Stones were supposed to play jazz fest in 2019, but Mick had some sort of heart problem, right? And so they had to cancel. And so I had seen this band at Gonorfest called the Shitty Beach Boys and they were fucking awesome. They would play Beach Boy songs as though they were the Ramones. And so like all those girls, those songs, like I Get Around, Be true to your school. You can just hear it in your head. It's like that downstroke kind of punk rock stuff. And they were great. I loved them. And so I was like, I want to put together the Shitty Stones, right? And. And we'll play instead of. Instead of the Stones for Jazz Fest, you know. And so I texted Benny, you know, Benny Divine, he's really talented musician in his own right. He's been in a bunch of bands. He. He's tours with the Spits and Natural Child and he's been in Quintron's band. And anyway, I texted him if he wanted to be in it, and he was just like, yeah, let's do it, you know? And so then the band sort of formed from there and Kunal Prakash is our lead guitar player, which made us no longer shitty because he's actually really good.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker D: And. And then I got a text from Quintron.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker A: He wanted in.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker D: He wanted in. Which was really. It was really touching, you know, like, Quintron wants to be in your band. Okay. I guess you can be my. My shitty Billy Preston, you know, so. So he was in it. And so we, we played at Poor Boys and, you know, we practiced. The conceit is we'll practice like twice. We'll drink heavily. Like, like the Replacements were notorious for like just sort of getting drunk and playing stone songs.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker B: Right?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker D: So that was kind of the, the. The dual kind of directive. Yeah. You know the North Stars.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker D: And so we played at Poor Boys and it was insane. Like, it was actually like. People went nuts, you know, like. And it was the funnest thing ever.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker B: Now you were the singer.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker D: I'm the singer. I'm Shitty Mick.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, Shitty Mick.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker B: And so what do you do differently? That's shitty. You just play them.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker A: We not Mick, So yell at you.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker D: There's two. Yeah, there's. There's. To.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker B: Beach boy thing was like a Ramones thing. So what did you do to the Stones?
• 1:02:51
  Speaker D: That's a great question. We. We practice twice and drink heavily.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker D: And so, you know, you lower the bar and. And it's just a lot of fun, you know, because the only way you can hear the song. The songs are undeniable. Like, we all know. And, like, I don't. I. Me and the band put the set list together, and we don't really pick too many deep cuts, which is like. It's just. It's a party band. You know, people have fun and hear honky tonk women and sing along, you know, and so those songs are undeniable. And you can only hear those songs either by the Stones in the Superdome.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker D: Or some really cheesy cover band. Or maybe a cool band plays, like, one song. Like, they'll play Sway or something. You know what I mean? But the idea was we'll just. We'll play these songs and we'll just be pretty rock and roll about it and not worry about getting. Getting all the changes right. Exactly. Or getting the words exactly right.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker A: Start together, try to finish together.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker B: It's a cover band, not a tribute band.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker D: You know what? I recently learned that it is a tribute band, because a tribute band only deals with one artist. A cover band does a panoply. Yeah, I learned that recently. Recently, someone was trying to point that
• 1:04:03
  Speaker A: out to me, but it's. It's. It's more of an interpretation, really.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker D: Yeah, but it's fun. I mean, we play. We play twice a year. We like to keep it special.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker D: We play every. Every Crew de Vous night. We've been playing at the Saturn Bar, and then we play BJ's during Jazz Fest.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker D: And it's super fun.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker A: I'd imagine that it's.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker D: It's a.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker A: It's a social event that people show up. You probably pack out every night you play.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker D: Yeah, that's part of the. You know, we don't want to play too often.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker B: Right?
• 1:04:34
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker D: So when we do play, it's.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, there you go.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker D: So when we do play, a lot of people show up. And I mean, it's. I don't care what your job is. Like singing stone songs with your friends, like, in front of a packed house. That's mostly your friends. Oh, my God. How lucky am I? You know, buy. Buy water blessed. You know what I mean? It's like.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker A: Sure, it's.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker D: I'M lucky. I'm a lucky some bitch. So, hey, man, it's super fun. I mean, I want to play more often, but I do understand that part of the beauty of it is.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, you don't want to wear it out. You've been playing with Valparaiso, which is another very much socially based. Socially based group where you have a small core with Alex McMurray leading the thing, you know, Matt Perrine playing tuba. Joe Cabal playing penny whistle. Some drummer, Chaz. Chaz. Oh, and Chaz. Great Chaz. Larry and Charlie.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker D: Charlie Holloran play.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker A: Charlie's now playing with the band.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker D: Aurora's in the band every once in a while when your boy can't play.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker A: And then, and then a whole bunch of guys who like to drink. And you're one of the, the guys who likes to drink and Jeff Traffinger. It's a whole bunch of people.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker D: I invited myself in the band. Okay. The band existed before. I, I think it's one of those
• 1:05:57
  Speaker A: groups that you can do that.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker D: Yeah, no, totally. I, I, I know Alex and I was like, can I be in the band? He said, yes, it looks great. So now you're not going to get paid? Sure. No, we get paid.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker A: Oh, really?
• 1:06:05
  Speaker D: No.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker A: The band.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker D: I'm surprised. I get ven mode money after we play. I'm shocked. Every time I knew the band got paid, the singers got paid. Yeah, we get paid. It's great. Yeah, that's fantastic. It really, really is. Right on, man. And so I. Yeah, Sea shanties. Yeah, we sing sea shanties. Very call and responsy. She sea shanties. I would. There's, I have a theory about the singers in the band. If I share. There's three types of dudes in the Valparaiso men's Chorus. In the chorus part.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker B: Right, Right.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker D: There's, there's the three H's, Right. I've thought about this a lot.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker D: There's the harmonizers, right? Guys who really like to harmonize in the chorus. There's guys that are hams, like Chris Lane and Gabe.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker A: Former guest.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker D: Yeah, Gabe. And I love Chris Lane. Yeah, yeah. Everyone loves Chris Lane. What's not to love? So there's the harmonizer of the hams and there's the just happy to be there guys.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker D: And I'm happy to be there. Guy who sometimes harmonizes.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker A: Right on.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker D: Yeah, it's super fun. Again, you know, I get to be in a pirate band. How, how fun is that? To sing along and, you know, I'd always stand as close to Carlo as possible. Because it was so much fun to, like. I would. I would love to. To watch Alex and Carlo with their eye contact, and it was really, really a lovely thing to witness, you know, And. And I miss Carlo in the band and.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker A: Sure, we all miss Carlo, especially Manny misses that. Carlo owes him $80, I think.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know it's a sore spot.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker D: What can you do?
• 1:07:44
  Speaker A: But, you know. Sorry to bring it up again.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker D: I brought it up.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker A: I do miss Carlo. Yeah.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker D: I mean, so that band is super.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker B: I miss jock itch, too.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker D: So that. That band is super fun. And it's. And it's. You know, it's been going on for 20 something years.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker A: Institution.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker D: And. And just being in the Saturn Bar, that's like the only place you should see that band.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker A: Another institution.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker D: Yeah. You feel like you're in the. You're in the. The. The gully or whatever the word is, of a. Of a ship, you know? Yeah, yeah, it's. It's the bowels of the show.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker D: All that stuff. Yeah. But, yeah, that's super fun to sing with those guys. And, you know, we used to have, like, pieces of paper and stuff with the words on it, you know, we know the words now.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker A: Long since lost all that.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker D: Yeah, no, it's a. It's a good time, man.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker A: Well, Andy, you're leading a charmed life. I hope you understand this. I hope in real time you are appreciating.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker D: No, this is awesome. Yeah, for now, you know, we'll see how things are going well. But.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I. I know it's a tough time for. For us, but, you know, in spite of all that, you know, thank you.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker D: That's nice of you to say that. Hashtag bywaterblessed. You know, I'm.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker C: I'm.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker B: I'm a lucky guy.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker D: Yeah. I live. Yeah. I mean, the Bywater.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker B: And where do your kids go to school now?
• 1:09:02
  Speaker D: One of them goes to Franklin. She's starting her. Yep. She's starting her second year there. And the other one is at the Waldorf School.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker A: Fantastic.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker D: Yeah, it's wonderful. They're 14 and 11. Oh, almost 15.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker A: That's so great.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker D: Got to teach her how to drive and all that stuff. Coming up.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker A: Right on, right on.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker D: Good luck with that crazy stuff.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker A: Teach her how to roll a joint. Yeah, she already knows.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker C: Sorry.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker D: She's.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker A: No, she's a good.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker D: She's a rule follower. She's a good kid.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker A: These days. They're not. It not. They're not like we were. No, they weren't. Weren't selling a sheet of acid by. By. By lunchtime, which one of my close friends was doing every day at Franklin.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker D: Wow.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker A: He could. He would buy a sheet of blotter acid for $100, and he carried it around in a paperback copy of A Clockwork Orange. And he had some fingernail scissors and he would cut off little strips of hits. Blotter hits. And he would have it all sold by noon.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker D: Wow.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker A: Every day.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker D: Franklin. What year is that?
• 1:10:04
  Speaker A: I graduated. Graduated in 81. So this was 79. 80. Anyway, it's still the same school. It's still fantastic school. Well, Andy, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, man.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker D: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker A: It was a lot of fun.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker D: A lot of fun.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker A: And as always on the Troubleman podcast, we like to say trouble never ends.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker B: But the struggle is constant. It continues.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker C: Come on. I stuck around St. Petersburg When I thought it was time for a change I killed the horse and his minister Anastasia screaming faith I roll the tank right in the chain rose ring where the Pittsburgh Ray and the body stake Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name Come on. But what's trusting you is the nature
• 1:11:11
  Speaker D: of my game
• 1:11:16
  Speaker C: I want you flee while you kings and queens fought for 10 decades for the gods they made I shouted out who killed the Kennedys? When after all it was Brad Benedict so let me please introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste and I leave trucks for troubadours who get killed before they rich by me I'm pleased to meet you and I will catch you Guess my name. Whoa. Please to meet you. Just as every cop is a criminal and a. And I hope that you guess my name as much of you is the nature what you tell me, baby, what's my name? What you tell the sweet what's my name? What's my name? What's a. Sam Woo? Baby, what's my name? What's up, baby, what's my name? What's up, sweetie? Go. Sad.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker B: She.