Latest / The Ric and Dan Show / Ric and Dan Duel to the Death
Transcript
- 0:01(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) He's Rick Tyler, and he's Dan Cashman.
- 0:04In Maine, we often hear, you can't get there from here.
- 0:07These are the stories of the risk takers, the trailblazers, those who turn obstacles
- 0:11into opportunities every day and found their way to get there from here.
- 0:16And today, they're on the Rick and Dan show.
- 0:20Are you the same guy you were 10 years ago?
- 0:22I don't know that I think about that.
- 0:26Well, now that I've asked you the question, now you've got to think about it.
- 0:28Well, I know, and I don't know that I want to.
- 0:30I just had a conversation with somebody about how deep I am.
- 0:35And I don't think of myself as a deep person, because I try very hard to live in the moment.
- 0:40And I try very hard to live in that moment through every situation, whether good or bad,
- 0:46and appreciate it for what it is, and try not to get too hung up on future casting or
- 0:53what's happened in the past.
- 0:55So I don't know that I have thought of this question until you just asked it to me.
- 1:02And I think any answer I give you would be a knee-jerk reaction.
- 1:06Well, let me ask you this.
- 1:07Have you always been that way?
- 1:08Have you always been, I must be in the present, I don't want a future cast, I can't dwell
- 1:13on the past.
- 1:14Have you always been that way?
- 1:15I think so.
- 1:16Really?
- 1:16Maybe not, but I think so.
- 1:19And I think about moments in my life, high school, high school graduation, college, college
- 1:25graduation, when I started my business.
- 1:27I pushed back so hard on a five-year plan.
- 1:31I did not want a five-year plan, because I was thinking, if I get too stuck in what the
- 1:36five-year plan looks at, then I don't know that I would take an opportunity to grow if
- 1:43it's not part of that five-year plan.
- 1:44And I just, the way that I think about things, because of my day job here at Sutherland Weston
- 1:51in public relations, I do try to analyze things for what could go right, what could go wrong.
- 1:58But I don't know that I analyze things from the perspective of looking back 10 years, looking
- 2:05ahead 10 years.
- 2:06It's very much in the moment.
- 2:08And I would say our world has changed from 10 years ago.
- 2:11So am I a different person?
- 2:12Quite possibly.
- 2:13What year is this?
- 2:152026.
- 2:15So that would be 2016.
- 2:17So yeah, I had a one-year-old and a five-year-old, four-year-old, going to be five later in the
- 2:22year.
- 2:23So yeah, I must have been a different person then.
- 2:26This is a really long answer and not what you are looking for, I'm sure.
- 2:30It is what I'm looking for, because you intentionally did not put a plan in stone.
- 2:36You planned for the necessary flexibility to reinvent yourself if necessary.
- 2:41Yeah, because I don't know what's going to happen.
- 2:42And I did that with my business.
- 2:44I did that with the television show.
- 2:46I had a goal, a very broad goal, to get that show on statewide.
- 2:50And we did.
- 2:51But if you had come to me in 2010 when we started The Night Show.
- 2:55I did, as a matter of fact.
- 2:57You did.
- 2:57We actually came to each other a lot.
- 2:58We still do.
- 2:59And said, what's your financial outlook for this?
- 3:03And what are you looking for in terms of ratings?
- 3:06And what are you...
- 3:07I didn't know and I didn't care.
- 3:09My goal was to expand it statewide, but the immediate goal was to have fun on television.
- 3:16And we could control that every single time we recorded.
- 3:20And if we didn't have fun on television, then we had to make darn sure that we did the next
- 3:24time we recorded.
- 3:26So, some plans, some policies were in place and in stone.
- 3:29Hey, if we don't nail this, we're going to do better next time.
- 3:33But you still had the flexibility, again, I go back to the term, to reinvent yourself.
- 3:38How many times have you had to reinvent yourself?
- 3:42I don't know that I have.
- 3:45Really?
- 3:46Yeah.
- 3:46Let me take you back to when I first met you, when you weighed about four times the amount
- 3:51you are right now.
- 3:53And that's not a joke.
- 3:55I had three of me inside of me.
- 3:59And you were not only pursuing your dream and your passion of a television program,
- 4:06you were also working in radio.
- 4:10And you departed radio for a time.
- 4:12I did.
- 4:13And worked in the world of politics.
- 4:16And at some point you returned sort of fully to broadcasting because the show had gone
- 4:23and then came back.
- 4:25Today you are still a broadcaster in a public marketing and community relations professional.
- 4:34I've seen you reinvent yourself at least once, twice.
- 4:38The time you did work for the Blue Ox, do I count that one as well?
- 4:42But I think through it all, you're talking about professions.
- 4:46Yes.
- 4:46I'm talking about professional reinvention, which is what I think we all have to do, whether
- 4:51we like it or not.
- 4:53But I think going back to your question about whether or not I'm the same person today as
- 4:57I was 10 years ago, I think the foundation that I have had is still the same.
- 5:04Which is good because if you don't have a foundation, slightest tremor, you're going
- 5:09to collapse.
- 5:10Right.
- 5:10But that foundation is something that I don't talk about.
- 5:14The foundation is to live every day to the fullest.
- 5:18You never know when it's going to be your last day.
- 5:20So I try to do that.
- 5:21It is to try and have fun with everything.
- 5:24No matter how difficult it is, try and have some fun.
- 5:28It is to treat others the way that you want to be treated.
- 5:31And I'm sorry.
- 5:32Could you go back to that last one again?
- 5:33Because I'm thinking about some of the podcasts that you and I have shared together and you
- 5:37know, treated me a sip of water and think about, I need to think about, do you also
- 5:41trade barbs with me when I trade barbs with you?
- 5:44Oh no.
- 5:44I'm the innocent victim every time.
- 5:45No, that's not true.
- 5:46But I will say that the reason why I poke fun of you and other coworkers and people on
- 5:53the show is because I love it when people do it to me.
- 5:56I love a good laugh and it doesn't matter if it's at my expense or somebody else's
- 6:00expense unless they are very much down on their luck.
- 6:04In my opinion, if we're friends, it's fair game to have fun.
- 6:08As long as it's funny, it doesn't matter to me.
- 6:11I always in my head go for the laugh first.
- 6:13Now I have a filter.
- 6:14I've developed a filter.
- 6:15One, if it's not funny, I don't go there.
- 6:18Two, sometimes I think things are funny that are not.
- 6:20Three, sometimes the setting that we're in is not appropriate.
- 6:25I can think of a few times on the show that we were having a serious moment with a guest
- 6:29and an idea popped into my head that I knew would get a laugh and I left it alone because
- 6:35I thought this is not the right time because they are on a roll with something and it's
- 6:39a moment that just didn't need to be funny.
- 6:43And so I put it, I just put it in the back of my head and just left it.
- 6:46But my brain instinctively at this point goes to what's going to be funny.
- 6:51And not everybody likes that.
- 6:54I have found very few people like that, in fact, but that's where my head goes.
- 6:58So when having a policy in stone that says I'm having no policy in stone, I'm going to
- 7:02remain flexible enough so I can reinvent and I can enjoy life in the moment.
- 7:06I'm wondering what challenges come with that.
- 7:08I think you're thinking too hard about it.
- 7:10I don't have a policy in stone.
- 7:11I just, I live every day because that's, that's what I want to do.
- 7:17I'm not crazy about it.
- 7:19I have been working here at Sutherland Weston for 10 and a half years.
- 7:24I'm not the type of person that lives every day to say, I've spent three days in this
- 7:29job.
- 7:29I'm going to go look for something else now.
- 7:31I am a, like I'm stable about it, but I also recognize that you only get one chance to
- 7:38go through this life that we know of.
- 7:40So make the most of it.
- 7:43And if that means doing something that looks outwardly like reinventing yourself, okay,
- 7:49that's fine.
- 7:50But I have figured I still have the same foundation and ideals that I had 10 years ago, but I
- 7:55probably behave differently because like I said, I have a, I don't have a one year
- 7:59old anymore.
- 8:00So I tell a few fewer fart jokes.
- 8:03I still tell them.
- 8:04The audience is different though.
- 8:06I recognize I have to play to the audience.
- 8:08But what about you?
- 8:11I don't make fart jokes.
- 8:12You should, because we might laugh at those.
- 8:15You've reinvented yourself.
- 8:17I've had to.
- 8:17You've had to, but I don't know about that.
- 8:21So you, your career path, you were damaging the tune buggy at Kiss 94 FM back in the day
- 8:28and then twice and then Kiss in the seventies.
- 8:32And then you went on to do the weather at ABC seven.
- 8:36I think at the time it was news channel seven.
- 8:38And then you went on to do the news at whatever they called news center main back then.
- 8:43Just news center.
- 8:43I guess new center.
- 8:44Yep.
- 8:45And then you were doing news and weather and anchoring.
- 8:48And then you went on to do news talk radio and I see those as a great reinvention of
- 8:56oneself publicly.
- 8:57That's the reinvention I guess I was talking about, but you brought up the point that there's
- 9:01personal reinvention and this professional reinvention.
- 9:03I'd like to think that personally, I haven't had to reinvent myself to too much, but it's
- 9:08the forced professional reinvention that I think happens to everyone in their career.
- 9:14Probably when I was a kid, I grew up pretending I had a radio station in the basements.
- 9:19Always me too.
- 9:21Always.
- 9:21What was the name of yours?
- 9:22Oh, mine was WDAM.
- 9:25People were listening for me, not for the hits.
- 9:28I was WRNR for rock and roll.
- 9:31Nice.
- 9:31And I even picked the frequency as 100.
- 9:34So ours, ours, like we had a staff.
- 9:37Really?
- 9:38Yeah.
- 9:38We had Linda in the front and then, uh, yeah, this girl, uh, Sally was doing mid days for
- 9:43us.
- 9:43She was great.
- 9:44No, it was, uh, I didn't understand that the frequency had to be an odd number.
- 9:49So I picked one that I knew nobody had 103.6.
- 9:52I didn't even do the 0.6.
- 9:53Yeah.
- 9:54I was just somewhere around 100 because I'm older than you and at the time you were just
- 9:58tuning in manually.
- 9:58There was no digital tuning.
- 10:00Right.
- 10:00That's cool.
- 10:01It's a little staticky, but it's close enough.
- 10:03Is that Starbuck?
- 10:04Moonlight feels right.
- 10:05Sounds like it.
- 10:06Ah, just a little.
- 10:07Oh, it is.
- 10:08Um, what, what was your format?
- 10:09All rock and roll or rock and roll.
- 10:11Did you deviate?
- 10:11I deviated.
- 10:12I was, I was today's format of adult hits.
- 10:15I was way ahead of my time.
- 10:17Really?
- 10:17Yeah.
- 10:17Yeah.
- 10:18Uh, no adult.
- 10:20So like, like the Frank FM that plays everything that was sort of my format.
- 10:23Oh, okay.
- 10:24Yeah.
- 10:24So I was playing everything from John Davidson hit cause he only had one to Huey Lewis in
- 10:29the news.
- 10:29A lot of Michael Jackson, some Tone Loke made its way into it, uh, into the playlist.
- 10:33So it was pretty diverse and ahead of its time.
- 10:36I was WRNR 100, 100 WRNR, 100% rock and roll and, and I would do the liners like that and
- 10:44I took a piece of paper and I took thumbtacks and press them up under them.
- 10:47So it looked like toggle switches in front of me and I would go and I would click and
- 10:51I would click them and my dad would say, what are you doing?
- 10:53I'm like broadcasting.
- 10:55Right.
- 10:55And then eventually got the first full time gig, got fired, went to college, was doing
- 11:01the college radio and my summertime job was working at Jed's restaurant in Belfast.
- 11:05Jed's RIP.
- 11:06The day that I was scrubbing the bottom of the boat with bleach, ruining my yellow t-shirt
- 11:12as it dripped on me, I got home and I was just beat and I sat down and I was too tired
- 11:17to talk and my mom and dad were on the opposite side of the living room and they were looking
- 11:22at me.
- 11:23And finally I said, is something wrong?
- 11:25And dad let out a sigh and he looked at my mom and he said, you tell him.
- 11:31I'm scared.
- 11:32I'm like, something's gone wrong.
- 11:33And she said, Tom Shepard from Kiss 94 FM called and he wants you to give him a call.
- 11:39Whoa.
- 11:40I'd forgotten all about scrubbing the bottom of the Cathy K with bleach.
- 11:43Yeah.
- 11:44I picked up the phone and the next day I drove from Belfast to Ellsworth.
- 11:50There was a rip in the crotch of my painter's pants jeans.
- 11:54And as I sat at a table across from Tim Moore, who's now the president of Maine Association
- 11:59of Broadcasters, I sat with my legs as close together as possible and my hands wedged in.
- 12:05And it was a Friday and I did the interview and Tim said, come back here at midnight.
- 12:11I did one break and Tim stumbled in and he said, yeah, you sound like you're fine.
- 12:14I'll be back here at six.
- 12:15And he left.
- 12:16And I'm like, you're going to trust me to do this?
- 12:18Everything was, was carts there, right?
- 12:20Everything was carts.
- 12:21Everything was live.
- 12:22And did you have like a playlist that you had to adhere to?
- 12:25With the clocks there, you know, play a green, play a power, play a yellow.
- 12:29And so for people not in the industry, what that means is the carts would have colors
- 12:32on them.
- 12:32A color segment rotation.
- 12:33And so the, the, the color green might, what was, was that currents or was that a, like
- 12:39gold?
- 12:40It's archive tits.
- 12:40Archive tits.
- 12:41Yeah.
- 12:41Recent, recent archive tits.
- 12:43I said that too fast and it made me laugh.
- 12:45See, it's the, it's the modern fart joke for a 48 year old.
- 12:49But anyway, all that to say that I got to reinvent myself from kid that wanted to be
- 12:53in radio.
- 12:54The kid that was in radio got let go from radio, went to college, did college radio.
- 12:58Wow.
- 12:59Then started working again full-time.
- 13:01And by the time I was in college, I remember my junior, my senior year, I was working part-time
- 13:05at channel two, part-time at Kiss FM and then going to college full-time and then got out
- 13:10and went to radio full-time.
- 13:12Two questions for you.
- 13:13One, did those jobs feel like jobs?
- 13:16Because knowing you as I know you, you loved and love that work.
- 13:20You're absolutely right.
- 13:21And point two, did you feel like you were reinventing yourself in those times even back
- 13:26then?
- 13:26Yes.
- 13:27Really?
- 13:27Yes.
- 13:28Really?
- 13:29Not personally, but professionally.
- 13:31Because I'm going to, Tim Moore, Mark Osborne, Stu Marcoon, they were fun, but they were
- 13:38professional.
- 13:39Sure.
- 13:39And they had a very, let me use the word strict, let me use the word strict, but not in like
- 13:45a, this is going to slap your knuckles with a ruler.
- 13:48Very gentle, very understanding, but this is the way we do this.
- 13:53And the sound that Kiss 94 FM had was adult, bright, and friendly, never down, never dark.
- 14:05I never would have made it there.
- 14:08And I would, now listen, I would listen to you on Z107.3 and I would hear someone much
- 14:17different, someone sharp, someone in a good way, forceful, present, in the Z workforce,
- 14:30right?
- 14:30Yeah.
- 14:30When you were on mid days.
- 14:31Yep.
- 14:31I was.
- 14:32And then what was the, during the noontime, it wasn't the back in the day cafe.
- 14:36It was.
- 14:36It evolved to that, but it was the 80s retro lunch hour when it first, when I first started
- 14:41there.
- 14:41Yeah.
- 14:41And if you were lucky, you heard Pac-Man Fever by Buckner and Garcia.
- 14:44Which was not approved by corporate, by the way.
- 14:46I would slip that in.
- 14:48This is back before they could stream us.
- 14:50So there were a lot of things that were not approved by corporate.
- 14:53No clue.
- 14:53Isn't the best shows we ever had were the days when the bosses were away.
- 14:56Yeah.
- 14:57When our corporate consultant would fly into town, that playlist was tight.
- 15:00But when he was not there, that 80s hour was all gloves.
- 15:06All bets were off.
- 15:07Yeah.
- 15:07Yeah.
- 15:08Bare naked ladies.
- 15:09Well, that would have been, I mean, that was an 80s, but, but that would have, that would
- 15:13have been a, if I had a million dollars, they would have been fine with that.
- 15:16But I was, I was playing some deep cuts from like Tiffany that nobody remembered.
- 15:23One song I always.
- 15:24Like what?
- 15:25Could have been?
- 15:26No, no.
- 15:27I don't even remember.
- 15:28I had, we had a cassette player back then, so I loaded in a couple of songs that I knew
- 15:36that I liked from her cassette into our computer system.
- 15:41So and I.
- 15:42How was the audio fidelity transfer on that?
- 15:44Not so good.
- 15:44I didn't think so.
- 15:45Not so good.
- 15:45But, but yeah, I would, I would play some deep cuts in that.
- 15:48And you know, I appreciate you saying that, but the, the, the type of stuff that I, I
- 15:56got the opportunity to do at Z107.3 was because there was little oversight creatively.
- 16:06So Bob Duchesne was my boss for a time and he put the trust in the people working for
- 16:13him to be creative.
- 16:15And I am forever grateful about that.
- 16:18However, the things that I thought were creative didn't necessarily translate to ratings successes.
- 16:25And one time I had an idea during the afternoon show to do a live remote, which the, the remote
- 16:33broadcast is when somebody is out somewhere on the road and then the person in the studio
- 16:38will throw to the person on the road to promote.
- 16:40Les Nesman's at the shopping mall watching the turkeys fall from the helicopter.
- 16:43Right, exactly.
- 16:44And most times if you listen to Kiss, you'd get Jordan's dogs on Nissen Rolls with ice
- 16:49cold Coca-Cola and free balloons for the kids from Taylor Rental Party Plus.
- 16:52Exactly.
- 16:53So I had an idea.
- 16:54It would be fun to do a remote from our first floor men's room.
- 16:58And kind of echoey, no, the acoustics were great.
- 17:02Really?
- 17:02Yeah.
- 17:03And I, but I, I set up back then cell phones weren't what we use because the technology
- 17:07wasn't great.
- 17:08So I said we had this thing that most radio stations had called a Marty and it would send
- 17:13a signal back to a tower and then that would go back to the studio comes up on the board.
- 17:17So I set up the Marty in the hallway outside the men's room with a mic cord going in.
- 17:22Nobody in the building cared.
- 17:24It was just, oh, they must be doing something.
- 17:28So it was, you were in the bathroom.
- 17:29Yeah.
- 17:29And Kid was on the air.
- 17:31This is where the fartokes came from.
- 17:32Always.
- 17:33Yeah, for sure.
- 17:34And he threw to me three times an hour for three hours and I'd just be like, yeah.
- 17:39Did you actually sit in there the entire time?
- 17:40My office was right outside it.
- 17:42So I would, I would.
- 17:43You had an opportunity to actually get some work done.
- 17:45I would get some work done.
- 17:45You were doing your business while you were doing your business.
- 17:48Exactly.
- 17:49But to the listener, I was just in the bathroom for three hours.
- 17:52I'm sure people grew tired of that bit.
- 17:55I'm tired of talking about it already.
- 17:57But it was stuff like that that just seemed fun at the time.
- 18:02And we were just able to do it.
- 18:04We had unlimited creative control with the exception of the music.
- 18:08Kid was the music director and he did a great job, an absolute great job calling out hits
- 18:14before they were hits.
- 18:15And he was always so good about that.
- 18:17We were right on top of music.
- 18:18But then corporate would sort of, actually the consultant we had at the time was, was
- 18:22pretty good.
- 18:23But eventually corporate sort of took over a little bit more than I think any radio station
- 18:27would like.
- 18:28Let me take this on a dark turn and talk about reinvention again.
- 18:31Because the Dan that I knew that I could come occasionally visit in the studio at Z107.3
- 18:38was the same Dan that one day had to give me the Sam Seaborn smackdown.
- 18:44Because at the time you had left radio and you were working for, as I recall, Governor
- 18:49John Baldacci.
- 18:50I don't know if I was yet.
- 18:52Well, why would you have been giving me the Sam Seaborn smackdown?
- 18:55Because you were talking about, what was it?
- 18:58I thought it was DeRigo Health.
- 19:00Yes.
- 19:00And the reason I gave it to you was because my aunt was going through, and I might get
- 19:06some of the details of this wrong.
- 19:07Your memory is far better than mine on things that happened 20 years ago.
- 19:11My aunt was going through cancer treatments and DeRigo Health basically is why she was
- 19:17and is still alive.
- 19:19And I remember talking to you about that, saying, it is not all bad.
- 19:24It has literally saved my aunt's life.
- 19:26And I don't think I was working in the administration yet.
- 19:30You were wearing a tie.
- 19:31Then maybe I was, or maybe I had just come from a funeral.
- 19:36You want to play that card?
- 19:37Hey, if you want to remember it this way.
- 19:39I don't know, but maybe I was.
- 19:41But I know that it was more about my aunt.
- 19:43And if I was working in the administration, it was less about that.
- 19:46I really recall, and maybe I'm wrong.
- 19:48And if I am, I will stand corrected.
- 19:50I was under the impression and the recollection you were working for the administration of
- 19:55John Baldacci and the work that, her name is going to elude me.
- 19:59She just got a university of Maine alumni award for her work in crafting DeRigo Health.
- 20:04Really, it was kind of the blueprint for what would eventually be the Affordable Care Act.
- 20:08It was like a precursor of it.
- 20:09And I remember that Elizabeth and I needed healthcare coverage.
- 20:14So we looked into DeRigo Health and it wasn't even going to come close to working for us.
- 20:20And then I started talking to others and they told me, no, it doesn't work.
- 20:23And here's why it doesn't.
- 20:24And this is why it isn't going to.
- 20:25I don't want to dig a past policy, but I had since reinvented myself again.
- 20:30And it's, this was in that time of I was in television.
- 20:34I quit everything.
- 20:35And I joined Elizabeth to start then Blue Paper Communications.
- 20:38There was a time I was out of broadcasting.
- 20:40But you must've been on the radio because I wouldn't have known.
- 20:43I was not on the radio.
- 20:44So why would I have known your thoughts on it?
- 20:46No, this didn't happen until I had gone back to radio and I went to work in talk radio.
- 20:52And suddenly my job was to ask questions.
- 20:55Yeah.
- 20:55Well, does it work for everyone?
- 20:56No.
- 20:56Why doesn't it work for everyone?
- 20:58Well, if it doesn't work for everyone, why should everyone have to pay into it?
- 21:02And then, and for those that don't understand the reference, Sam Seaborne, Smackdown, one
- 21:06of our favorite, our mutual favorite television shows along with Ed and several others was
- 21:11the West Wing.
- 21:12Which I had not seen at the time.
- 21:13So I really had no idea who or what you were talking about, but I went with it because I
- 21:17was passionate about my aunt.
- 21:18Yeah.
- 21:19And Sam Seaborne was a character in the Bartlett administration in the West Wing.
- 21:22And when someone had to be told to stop or think twice about what you're doing, it was
- 21:28Sam's job to go talk to them.
- 21:30And then there's an episode where someone says, am I getting the Sam Seaborne Smackdown?
- 21:34And Sam Seaborne, who was, that wasn't Rob Lowe's character, wasn't it?
- 21:37I think it was.
- 21:37It was.
- 21:38Yeah.
- 21:38And he had to say, yeah, I guess you are.
- 21:40So did you think I was deployed there by the administration to talk with you?
- 21:45It was pretty easy to connect some dots because there's no way you were listening to me on
- 21:49the radio.
- 21:49Otherwise, how did you know that I was saying the things I was saying and the questions
- 21:52I was asking about your health?
- 21:54So I was listening to you on the radio because-
- 21:56You were the only one.
- 21:57No, that's not true.
- 21:58Oh, this was early on.
- 21:59I had an hour and 15 minutes in the car in the morning to get to Augusta.
- 22:03This was before Sirius XM, wasn't it?
- 22:05Otherwise you would have been listening to Kids Place Live.
- 22:07I wouldn't have been.
- 22:08No, I didn't have kids.
- 22:09So why would I listen to Kids Place Live without kids?
- 22:11Because it's still great without kids.
- 22:12It is great without kids.
- 22:13Mindy does a wonderful job.
- 22:15No, I would listen in the morning, but it was before I had an iPod.
- 22:18It was before, I don't even think I had a CD player in that car.
- 22:22I was listening to the radio every day.
- 22:24Because it would have been 2005, 2006-ish, maybe 2007.
- 22:272006 is when I started.
- 22:28All of this to say that the Dan that I knew that would broadcast live from a bathroom
- 22:34on a contemporary hits radio station was not the Dan that was wearing a tie that I recall
- 22:39was working for the administration of one of the most successful governors in the state
- 22:42of Maine.
- 22:43Yes, I said what I said, and I'll stand by it because he did what he did for the people
- 22:46of Maine.
- 22:47And there's a reason he got elected twice, and there's a reason that he served in Congress.
- 22:51Very different people.
- 22:52And that's why I looked to you, as I said earlier, tell me about the times that you reinvented
- 22:57yourself because you did.
- 22:58And then you did it again and became a television host.
- 23:02I did.
- 23:02But let me just close, let me put the final button on that.
- 23:05And I would say that-
- 23:07Go ahead and try.
- 23:08When it comes to my family, I will defend to the end.
- 23:15And I do remember, well, I don't remember where I was working.
- 23:19I do remember that was 100% about my aunt and her experiences.
- 23:23Because you said to me, I'm going to get this wrong, but you can correct me because
- 23:27you will remember exactly what you said.
- 23:29All of us want life, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness, but we just disagree on how
- 23:34we get there.
- 23:35Does that sound familiar?
- 23:36Or something like something you would say?
- 23:37Very, very close.
- 23:38Yes.
- 23:39So I said to you that this is a very personal topic for me, and I fully believe that she
- 23:48is still here because of it.
- 23:49And I'll leave it at that.
- 23:50But that was where I was coming from.
- 23:52Okay.
- 23:52I wish we had had this conversation, you know, later that night.
- 23:55It would have been nice to-
- 23:56You know, we probably wouldn't have had a friend relationship hiatus.
- 24:01I don't think we did.
- 24:02Well, well, it took a while.
- 24:05We had a friend relationship hiatus when I told you that Congressman Mishu couldn't appear
- 24:09on your show the next morning after election day.
- 24:12And I was trying to, oh God, I have to admit this, I was trying to text and drive before
- 24:16voice to text.
- 24:17And I was just trying to get the point across that like, there's no room in the schedule.
- 24:22I'm really sorry.
- 24:23And I said something that came across as very flippant, very flippant.
- 24:26I didn't have good text etiquette back then.
- 24:28I was just trying not to be distracted and it came across the wrong way.
- 24:34But you know what?
- 24:35I liked you enough to understand.
- 24:40There was a past tense in there that I don't know that I can-
- 24:43No, no, no, because I liked you then, I love you now, in a way, and if I were to right
- 24:48now, press the fast forward button, I take us to the day that I reached out to you to
- 24:55ask you on behalf of the United Way, then of Eastern Maine, if you would be the guest
- 25:00speaker as Elizabeth and I were asked to be the chairs of the campaign, the first husband
- 25:05and wife chair of the campaign.
- 25:06And we decided, you know what?
- 25:08We are going to reinvent, we are going to look to reinvigorate the United Way campaign
- 25:14in Eastern Maine.
- 25:15And here's how we're going to do it.
- 25:16We're going to do it here.
- 25:17We're going to invite these people.
- 25:19I'm going to put together a musical monologue that gets people dancing.
- 25:23I've got a vision in my head to do it.
- 25:24Which was incredible.
- 25:25I will die on that.
- 25:27Don't make me cry.
- 25:28It was incredible.
- 25:29I remember standing there watching this take place saying, how, how many rehearsals did
- 25:35they need to make this work?
- 25:37And you answer the question right now.
- 25:38I think I know the answer.
- 25:40How many rehearsals?
- 25:42I rehearsed it in my head.
- 25:43Zero, zero rehearsals.
- 25:44I know.
- 25:45And I had the two, the two friends that were going to go dance on the pitchers.
- 25:49Anyway, before we get to that, or let's save that for another day, cause I'm going to cry.
- 25:53Yeah.
- 25:54Which was my goal coming in here.
- 25:56No, because you know what?
- 25:57And I'll confess.
- 25:58And I don't, I do not want this to happen, but I know someday, I know someday I'm going
- 26:03to be sitting alone in a nursing home and I'm going to be trying to think about what
- 26:08do I have to look back on where I felt like, you know, that really worked or that was fun
- 26:12and that made a difference or that was exciting.
- 26:14That's one of the moments.
- 26:15If I get to pick five, five.
- 26:17Do you wish somebody had recorded that?
- 26:19No.
- 26:20And you know why?
- 26:21I fear that if I look back at it now, it wouldn't be nearly as fun and heartwarming
- 26:29and successful and well-timed.
- 26:31Nope.
- 26:32Cause I disagree.
- 26:33However, you are your own worst critic.
- 26:35So for you, hello, pedal, pedal, hello pot.
- 26:39This is pedal.
- 26:39You're black.
- 26:40Pedal.
- 26:41For you.
- 26:42Yes.
- 26:43It would not be as good as you remembered, but I saw it with clear vision and it was incredible.
- 26:49And that is not an overstatement.
- 26:51I appreciate that from you.
- 26:52Do you remember the song?
- 26:53Cause if you remember the song, I'll give you all the money in my pocket right now.
- 26:56It was either small world or perfect world by Huey Lewis.
- 26:59It was small world.
- 27:00I get the two confused.
- 27:01Everyone does.
- 27:02Yep.
- 27:02But in small world, there's that break before the little sax solo.
- 27:06I think it's, I think it's an alto sax or a tenor sax solo.
- 27:09Stan Getz maybe on sax.
- 27:11But the entire thing had to time out to that point and then get everyone to dance and then
- 27:18stop at that point.
- 27:19And then to explain, we're going to bring the fun back.
- 27:23Yeah.
- 27:24I'm choking up now.
- 27:26Anyway but anyway.
- 27:28Do you know what it reminded me of?
- 27:29And I don't remember which one happened first, but Letterman's final episode.
- 27:33People might know I have a little bit of a fascination with late night television.
- 27:36I was up watching it, uh, that night, uh, May 20th, 2015, Foo Fighters playing the final
- 27:43song and they had the time out that they were playing live.
- 27:46They had to time out with the video montage, Farrah Fawcett saying, wow.
- 27:51And they did.
- 27:53And that's, I don't remember which one came first, but I remember either seeing you and
- 27:57thinking Foo Fighters or seeing that and thinking Rick Tyler in that moment.
- 28:01That's the best part of living in this community.
- 28:03It's just big enough to do something like that and just small enough to let us be a
- 28:06part of it.
- 28:07Hmm.
- 28:07Yeah.
- 28:07You can do anything here.
- 28:09Yeah.
- 28:09In Bangor, Maine.
- 28:10But let me go back.
- 28:11Okay.
- 28:12Before that event, they needed someone to be the speaker.
- 28:14Right.
- 28:15And I sat in the room and I opened my mouth to say, I wonder if...
- 28:18And before I did, I think it was, I think it was Shira.
- 28:22Do you think Dan Cashman would talk?
- 28:24Do you think Dan Cashman would come out?
- 28:26And I was like, well, I, I know the guy and I called him, remember they brought us in and
- 28:32we both had t-shirts.
- 28:33Yeah.
- 28:34Mine was too small.
- 28:35I just thought you looked buff.
- 28:36No, I looked fat.
- 28:37But they took...
- 28:37But it's fine.
- 28:38No, you did.
- 28:39And they took a picture of the two of us.
- 28:41Yeah.
- 28:41And we stood back to back.
- 28:43Snack to snack.
- 28:43And we had a full page ad in the Bangor Daily News.
- 28:46Yeah.
- 28:47I would love to still see that today.
- 28:49But what did I tell you when you left that day?
- 28:52I don't know.
- 28:52Walking down the hallway, because I know you at Cashman Communications.
- 28:56Yeah.
- 28:56I know you're doing the show.
- 28:57Yeah.
- 28:58I keep saying to him, this is going to come back to the West Wing in a second.
- 29:01And a little echo, he's one of us.
- 29:05He's one of us.
- 29:07And I'd said it to Elizabeth, I'd said it to Carrie, the guy that used to be here, Dan,
- 29:11he's one of us.
- 29:12And I said to you as you're walking down the hallway, don't you think we should talk about
- 29:17this?
- 29:18Maybe, but what triggered the actual...
- 29:20If you're not remembering this correctly, how can I trust that you're remembering this
- 29:23Deerego Health conversation correctly, okay?
- 29:26But what triggered the actual conversation for me coming here was after the event, not
- 29:32after the photo shoot, after the event, when I said to you, we should do more things together.
- 29:36Yes.
- 29:37And then I was in a meeting where I think I left my phone in the car or I turned it off.
- 29:42I don't remember.
- 29:42But when I went back to the phone, there were seven messages from you and all of them, except
- 29:48for one said, call Carrie.
- 29:49And then the last one said, call Carrie soon.
- 29:52So I remember that part.
- 29:54I don't remember the conversation as we were walking down the hallway after the photo shoot
- 29:57though.
- 29:58I do.
- 29:58And it's...