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TMP345 ANTHONY DONADO MAKES IT EASY · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker A: Greetings, troubled listeners. Welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I am Renee Coleman, sitting in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge in the heart of the clampire with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome, Manny.
• 0:32
  Speaker B: Hey, man. What is going on now?
• 0:34
  Speaker A: Not too much. It just had a trio walk in with the berets, the Russian hats, sunglasses.
• 0:40
  Speaker B: I don't know, maybe someday escape from island.
• 0:45
  Speaker A: Maybe it's. Maybe it's a. It's an Agent 99 lookalike contest.
• 0:50
  Speaker B: Well, also, the World cup is happening in the France plate today.
• 0:53
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. Is that.
• 0:55
  Speaker B: That could be it. It could be a bunch of frogs entering this stu dump.
• 0:58
  Speaker A: All right, now, have you been kind
• 1:00
  Speaker C: of like the agent 99, agent 9A
• 1:02
  Speaker A: Barbara Feldman look alike contest?
• 1:03
  Speaker C: Yeah, it works.
• 1:05
  Speaker A: She's pulling it off right, right now. Manny, have you been following that?
• 1:10
  Speaker B: Of course.
• 1:10
  Speaker A: Oh, really?
• 1:11
  Speaker C: Of course.
• 1:11
  Speaker B: I love the World Cup. I've got World cup fever. Really? And I always do.
• 1:16
  Speaker A: Huh?
• 1:16
  Speaker B: And now it's even better because the late. The late Wadzilla, before he passed away, he. He set me up with this.
• 1:30
  Speaker A: You were telling us that. Yeah, the. The television.
• 1:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, I've got over 6, 000 channels all over the world.
• 1:38
  Speaker A: So you're.
• 1:38
  Speaker B: So. I've. I. I can watch any game. Any game. I could watch a game. Let's say Australia is playing the U.S. i could watch it from an Australian station in Sydney. I can watch their fee.
• 1:50
  Speaker C: Who's your pick?
• 1:53
  Speaker B: I'm going for Iran. Iraq. Iran. I mean, I'm going for Iran. No, Iraq. I'm going for one of those two.
• 1:59
  Speaker A: Huh?
• 2:00
  Speaker B: The ones that we are. We. We attacked and killed and murdered Iran, I think. Yeah, Iran. I'm pulling for them. They played most recently Iran. Yeah. But they played a great game. Yesterday was a great tie. It's amazing how it's like the only sport where a tie can actually be really entertaining, you know? Huh? It's really amazing. And the game on Sunday with the. The Japs and the. The Netherlands, they played a tie game. And that was an amazing game, huh? Amazing. But I'm going for Iraq because I want them to win it all and spit on the US they look at us, man.
• 2:36
  Speaker A: A lot of people are pulling for Iran against the United States. It's crazy, man. Crazy. Going nuts. Yeah.
• 2:46
  Speaker B: They're always a tough team. But do you remember about two World Cups ago, one of the players for Uruguay bit another player?
• 2:53
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 2:54
  Speaker B: Remember that?
• 2:54
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I remember his name. He was. That's why I Love him so much, I think I can't remember the guy's name, but, yeah, he bit the guy.
• 3:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was like a Tyson on a soccer field. He just bit the guy. I forget his name, too, and I forget who they were playing. But that was about two World Cups
• 3:10
  Speaker C: ago, I think so. Yeah.
• 3:11
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 3:11
  Speaker C: And he's been known to do it. He had done it before. It was not his first bite.
• 3:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's one of his moves.
• 3:19
  Speaker B: And he was apparently one of their top players or something. I don't know. Defenders or whatever. I don't know.
• 3:23
  Speaker C: So we got to watch out for that. The young Uruguayan soccer players, for some
• 3:27
  Speaker B: reason, you know, they won. They won. They were like the Cinderella team that won back in the 30s or something. Right. And they've never won since. But they always seem to get there, you know, they always seem to be in the Cup.
• 3:40
  Speaker C: They're scrappy. They're always scrappy.
• 3:43
  Speaker B: They're scrappy. Like Italy. Italy hasn't been in it since, like, 2012. They haven't even qualified because, you know, there's like, four years of qualifying for these teams to get in, because you have every country in the world trying to qualify for these 48 spots.
• 3:59
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 3:59
  Speaker B: You know, and look at the Cape Verde. They. They. They held Spain to Nasina yesterday. And this. This is a little island nation of about 250,000 people that qualified. They're ranked 67th in the world. And they tied the number two team in the world, Spain, which they celebrated like, they just, you know, won.
• 4:22
  Speaker A: Won the whole thing, huh?
• 4:23
  Speaker B: Yeah. And it was, like, amazing.
• 4:25
  Speaker C: All right.
• 4:25
  Speaker B: You know, crazy drama there. Yeah. A little island off the coast of West Africa.
• 4:30
  Speaker A: I'm missing out on it all. I can't, can't, can't.
• 4:34
  Speaker B: Of course, you know, I. I have to watch it in the Spanish language because it's so much funner and more exciting to watch it in the Spanish,
• 4:41
  Speaker C: they call it better. It's just. It's just so.
• 4:43
  Speaker B: It's just exactly.
• 4:45
  Speaker D: There's.
• 4:45
  Speaker C: There's inflection in that voice. Whereas Amer. It's just so. So blase and homogenized.
• 4:50
  Speaker B: Right.
• 4:51
  Speaker C: Watching an English person do it.
• 4:52
  Speaker B: Right. Exactly. Where, you know, it's like, oh, what a gold for that. For the English, you know, where it's like, you listen to in Spanish. I mean, it's just like. It's just like crazy. Going nuts. But even, like the leading up, this stuff, you know, it's just what they're talking about.
• 5:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:08
  Speaker B: You know, Anyway, so that's what I'm watching. I'm excited about it. I'm missing a great game right now for it, you know, which I. Hopefully I'll be able to get home and watch the end of it. Yeah.
• 5:17
  Speaker A: You know, this thing's last.
• 5:18
  Speaker B: I'm trying to watch it all.
• 5:20
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 5:20
  Speaker B: Because it only comes around every four years.
• 5:23
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:24
  Speaker B: You know, and you got to remember, the United States wouldn't even be in it if they weren't hosting the. The. The cup. They get an automatic entry because they host it.
• 5:34
  Speaker A: Well, FIFA is very, very corrupt, is it not?
• 5:36
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: The whole organization, it's.
• 5:38
  Speaker B: It's all.
• 5:39
  Speaker C: I think it's run by a bunch of money. Oh, yeah, it's the Illuminati. It's what. It's their guys. They just call it FIFA.
• 5:47
  Speaker A: I think it's a lot of. A lot of oil money.
• 5:50
  Speaker B: Well, it's very. You know, people get into it, man.
• 5:53
  Speaker A: All right, well, you know, God bless them. Glad they're having something they can enjoy now. I don't know. Some other news going on here, and I know I was out of town this weekend. I was up in Tennessee playing a few dates, but apparently I missed the. The annual naked bike ride, which we seem to always mention on this podcast at. Annual event.
• 6:15
  Speaker B: It's so stupid.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: Did you attend?
• 6:17
  Speaker B: No, I didn't. That shit. Oh, well, you know, it's the only. It's the only time, you know, people on bicycles don't get hit by cars for some reason. It is this bike race or this bike run, whatever they call it, usually
• 6:32
  Speaker C: for things like that. It may sound alluring. Ooh, naked bike ride. But there's usually only about two or three people that you'd actually want to see naked doing it out of the 500.
• 6:43
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. No, I think you want to put your eyes out.
• 6:45
  Speaker C: Yeah. Most of the time it's like, oh, my goodness. Yeah.
• 6:48
  Speaker B: Well, what's it. There's naked, there's good naked, and there's bad naked. And that's definitely.
• 6:53
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 6:53
  Speaker B: Because that's definitely bad naked, you know.
• 6:55
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 6:56
  Speaker B: People there and all that. It's always the ugliest and fat as fucks you ever want you anyway, you
• 7:01
  Speaker C: have to be like, how often do you ride your bike? Really? Like, look at you.
• 7:06
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 7:06
  Speaker B: Exactly. Is this the only day of the year? But, yeah, so it's. They get some exercise out of it. No, I didn't go to that, man. I don't need that in my life, man.
• 7:17
  Speaker A: Well, did you see this item in the news? This was in Brazil I believe, had a woman. You know, people go on vacations, they get talked into, you know, doing something exciting, you know, free diving, or in this case, the bungee. Bungee jumping.
• 7:35
  Speaker B: It's not bungee. It's rope swinging.
• 7:37
  Speaker D: It's.
• 7:38
  Speaker A: Well, I don't know. Is that.
• 7:39
  Speaker B: Is that what it was? Yeah, that's what it was, what they call it, because I actually read even more about that. There's actually an international organization for bungee jumping.
• 7:48
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 7:49
  Speaker B: And they're saying this is giving us a bad name because it wasn't bungee jumping what they were doing. It's rope swinging.
• 7:55
  Speaker A: Well, so I'm sure everyone's seen the video by now, but in case you haven't seen it, there, the person's being filmed from behind and you can see the whole thing on the camera. And I guess they couldn't see, but as soon as they showed it on television, I noticed right away there's no rope attached to her. And this poor woman, they just launch her off the side of this 130, 30 foot high bridge and she just sails down unobstructed, you know, and they
• 8:27
  Speaker B: forgot the rope, forgot to hook her up. It was three guys. It was like they were going, I thought you were supposed to do it. No, I thought you. No, that wasn't me. You're supposed to do it. I did the last time.
• 8:36
  Speaker A: It goes back to my rule of thumb that, you know, there's certain things you just don't do because. Why, what could. What could the possible upside be of it?
• 8:45
  Speaker C: You know, it's like jumping off of bridge with the rope. That's. There's very few upsides. Like.
• 8:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 8:53
  Speaker C: I don't know. Some adrenaline for a second.
• 8:55
  Speaker A: Supposed to be terrifying. I'm sure it was terrifying.
• 8:58
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 8:59
  Speaker A: But.
• 8:59
  Speaker C: Yeah, for a lot of people, the last.
• 9:01
  Speaker A: The last thrill. Last.
• 9:03
  Speaker B: Well, it's like always, the only people that are going to win are the lawyers. The lawyers will win.
• 9:08
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 9:09
  Speaker B: Sure, they'll win. You know, but. Yeah, those South Americans, they're crazy people, man. They should have been at the World Cup. Why are they throwing. Why are they jumping off bridges, man? Man, they should be at the World cup supporting their team.
• 9:20
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 9:21
  Speaker B: You know.
• 9:21
  Speaker A: Okay, well, you have anything else there, man?
• 9:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, I got plenty.
• 9:24
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 9:26
  Speaker B: While you were gone, I. I saw this thing. You know what do you usually tip when you go to a restaurant? You try to do the 20%.
• 9:36
  Speaker A: Sure, sure. 20%, 25.
• 9:37
  Speaker C: Being. Being an ex waiter, I might push it up a little bit, But I have 20% for sure.
• 9:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, so you're an ex waiter. This waiter, in some town, I think it was in Ohio or maybe Pennsylvania. And it was apparently a $200 bill. And the customer left a $50 tip, which is 20%.
• 10:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, 25%.
• 10:04
  Speaker B: 20, 25%. And the waiter looked at him and goes, I'm not taking this.
• 10:12
  Speaker A: What?
• 10:12
  Speaker B: I want $85. What? And the, the woman was like, that's
• 10:17
  Speaker C: not really the way it works.
• 10:18
  Speaker B: Yeah. He goes, I want $85. 200. And that's like a 42% tip. Jeez. 40. And it was this big thing and basically the woman, the customer just said, well, if you don't want it, I'll take it right back. Sure, put it back in her pocket. Right.
• 10:35
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 10:35
  Speaker B: You.
• 10:36
  Speaker C: I don't have to give you nothing.
• 10:37
  Speaker B: I don't have to give you anything. Really. Yeah. But this guy, this waiter, he. He refused a $50 tip, man.
• 10:43
  Speaker C: You know that. Yeah, I could be mentally ill. I don't know.
• 10:46
  Speaker B: Maybe it's just like, I don't know, whatever became of it, there was no real resolution to it. Like, did.
• 10:52
  Speaker C: Oh, there was a resolution. He got nothing.
• 10:54
  Speaker B: Yeah. But did he get fired? I know it went on online. The woman was interviewed by all those magazine shows and stuff. It's just like, who's going to say no to 50 bucks? Yeah. An idiot. This guy's an idiot. I hope he got fired. I hope he's washing dishes now, you know, but anyway, that happened. I thought that was crazy. Going nuts.
• 11:17
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 11:18
  Speaker B: And then over, I think it was about two weeks ago, there was a guy, speaking of 42%. He was, he was celebrating his 42nd birthday and apparently it was a whole day long party. He's celebrating his 42nd birthday. This is in Orange County, California, you know, which is kind of a crazy area of California. He got, he was drinking and apparently witnesses said he had two quarts of Jack Daniels. He drank two quarts of Jack Daniels. And then this is at his own birthday party. His family's there visiting. Family and friends are visiting. And he comes out of his bedroom with guns and just starts shooting everywhere. Fortunately for him, he didn't kill anybody.
• 12:08
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 12:08
  Speaker B: They ran like crazy. And then he was still in the house. The family called the cops on him. Later, about 20 minutes later, the cops are coming. 20 minutes. A helicopter, a sheriff's helicopter is coming overhead to check out the scene. He gets on like his balcony and starts shooting at the helicopter. Jeez. So one night of partying for this guy, one drunken Night. Now he's facing up to 24 years in prison.
• 12:34
  Speaker A: Oh, I'll bet.
• 12:35
  Speaker B: You know, so.
• 12:36
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 12:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. I never was a Jack guy, really. You know, Jack and coke once in a while in my younger days. But at 42, you got to move on.
• 12:44
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:46
  Speaker C: I'm having one right, Jack?
• 12:48
  Speaker B: Right now.
• 12:48
  Speaker A: You don't have any firearms.
• 12:50
  Speaker C: No, I have no firearms, and I'm only having one. I'm not gonna drink two bottles of it.
• 12:55
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 12:56
  Speaker C: That's. That's the whole. That's the whole thing. Like, drinking it kind of responsibly if you're gonna. Yeah.
• 13:00
  Speaker A: I never understand people that get a good head of steam with the booze and think, oh, this will be a good time to pull out the guns.
• 13:10
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 13:11
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:12
  Speaker A: It's like. I don't know. I don't know what. How that.
• 13:15
  Speaker B: Knives. Okay. Well, not guns. Well, yeah, you know, you could break out the knives.
• 13:19
  Speaker C: Being from a rural south southern Louisiana town, I had a lot of friends that like the. The whole get. Get drunk and pull out the shotguns and let's shoot things.
• 13:30
  Speaker A: Oh, geez. No, that's. You're asking for trouble.
• 13:33
  Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, I did. It was. It was. It was nothing but trouble. As a matter of fact.
• 13:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:37
  Speaker A: Manny was talking about something last week where the. The forest rangers were. A show where they were arresting drunk hunters.
• 13:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. It's called Drunk Louisiana. It's a hunting show. It's a cop show where they. They bust drunk Louisiana hunters.
• 13:55
  Speaker C: That's probably every single one of them. I don't know. A hunter that doesn't get loaded. You know, it's not. They don't. It's. It's weird. It's weird. It's like. Yeah, it's like that. It's like their thing. I'm gonna go sit up in a stand with a gun. I better bring a bottle of bourbon. Right, Because.
• 14:11
  Speaker A: Just to stay warm.
• 14:12
  Speaker C: To stay warm.
• 14:13
  Speaker A: That's what they say, right?
• 14:14
  Speaker B: Yeah. That's crazy. Also in the news, and they're doing it now at our former place, New Orleans Athletic Club, that we used to do this show at. It's a new aerobics kind of thing, and it's catching the nation by storm. And they're even offering it where I go. My club. It's where you put. You get a pack, maybe two packs of post it notes, and you write things that you want to get rid of in your life. You know, you want to get rid of your. Whatever, you know, your sugar. You don't want to Eat sugar anymore. Right. You know, resolutions and stuff. Or maybe things. Affirmation stuff and things like that. And you write them on these post it notes and then you stick them all over your body. You stick them all over your body and then they put on this aerobics music and you dance and you. You dance and you dance and you do all these exercises until every post it note falls off your body.
• 15:13
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 15:13
  Speaker B: And they're offering it at my place, and I tried to sign up for it, but they looked at me and they said, you're gonna need more than one pack of post it notes because they know me there.
• 15:27
  Speaker A: Right.
• 15:27
  Speaker B: But apparently it's taken the country by storm.
• 15:30
  Speaker A: I hadn't heard of that.
• 15:31
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, you can YouTube it. It's crazy going on. Yeah.
• 15:35
  Speaker C: Did you say that you could wear clothes that were like three sizes too big?
• 15:38
  Speaker B: Well, I don't know.
• 15:40
  Speaker C: You cover me with as many of them as you want.
• 15:43
  Speaker B: I mean, I saw footage of it. There was girls, like, in aerobic outfits, and there was girl. People just wear. It was mostly girls and people wearing just sweatpants and sweatshirts and stuff. And it was funny to watch because some of these post it notes flew off of these people really fast. And some of them, for some reason, didn't fly off at all. And they were moving just as fast. They were doing the same moves and stuff, but they just weren't coming off. So I don't know if that says anything about these people.
• 16:10
  Speaker C: Like, I would be interested in the naked post it note of Robi's class.
• 16:15
  Speaker A: Okay, well, would you.
• 16:16
  Speaker C: That's better than the bike ride.
• 16:17
  Speaker A: We already discussed that nakedness could be. Could be a real deal. Have a lot of downsides to it.
• 16:24
  Speaker B: I would like to. The naked drunk hunting.
• 16:27
  Speaker C: Ah, yeah, that's. That's a winner.
• 16:31
  Speaker B: All right. Shooting people on bikes.
• 16:33
  Speaker A: Couldn't. No concealed weapons there.
• 16:36
  Speaker B: Yeah. So that's a big thing that's happening now. Other than that, I'm. I'm just all hyped up about everything else except that. And I got world fever on my mind. Fever.
• 16:48
  Speaker A: Well, we got. I have one more. One more piece of information before we get to the guest here. You know, we've had the. The ongoing saga of the phrase welcome in.
• 16:57
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 16:58
  Speaker A: And so since we've spoken about it on the show, now we're hearing more troubled listeners weighing in, bringing examples of people using that phrase welcome in. Like when you go into. To a restaurant or something. You know, it's a new thing that I started hearing in the last year. Or so where they start saying welcome in. Weird phrase.
• 17:23
  Speaker C: Very. As a. As the. As the ex matra. D. It's just welcome, welcome.
• 17:28
  Speaker A: Right, right. But no, now it's. It's a new thing. And so the Eddie V, our longtime patron and and troubled listener, weighed in. He said he heard. Heard it in a Walgreens in Flowwood, Mississippi. Somebody said, welcome in.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: Well, I heard it. Well, that tracks. Chase bank commercial.
• 17:48
  Speaker A: Well, that, that. And then he said. Then he sent me the, the, the link of, of he had taped it off his television where it's. Yeah, Chase Bank. And, and the woman banker says welcome in to Chase.
• 18:00
  Speaker B: Ben, did I tell you I was at Martin's Winery? And the girl said that.
• 18:05
  Speaker A: Said that to you?
• 18:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, I told you that already. And then it's not a motel. We're not a motel here.
• 18:11
  Speaker A: Then, since then, an article and Apple News appeared tracing the origins of the phrase welcome in. And they say it maybe was somewhere floating around in the south or something in the early 2010s. But then in the aftermath of the pandemic that recent, huh? Yeah, it's. Well, I mean, it's.
• 18:35
  Speaker B: They're saying it's a Southern thing.
• 18:36
  Speaker A: Well, they're.
• 18:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:37
  Speaker A: Saying possibly, you know, they're trying to find the first iterations of this showing up somewhere and that. Yeah, possibly somewhere in the South. But then it got, you know, got into the hospitality industry and maybe somebody wrote articles about it or something promoting this and, and starting post lockdown that it has become more universal that people are using this in the hospitality industry. Welcome in. Strange.
• 19:06
  Speaker B: I think next time someone says it to me, I'm going to tell them to shut the up.
• 19:10
  Speaker C: That's one way to stop it.
• 19:11
  Speaker B: Shut the up.
• 19:12
  Speaker C: That's one way to stop it for sure, you know.
• 19:14
  Speaker B: All right.
• 19:15
  Speaker C: I don't know if the Southern thing works for me because usually we make things simpler. We don't add a word.
• 19:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:21
  Speaker C: If you can get away with saying welcome, you don't say welcome in.
• 19:24
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:24
  Speaker C: Because you have to say more.
• 19:25
  Speaker A: That doesn't sound like.
• 19:26
  Speaker C: That doesn't track.
• 19:27
  Speaker A: New Orleans. That's what this article I was reading was. Was suggesting that. Well, somewhere else.
• 19:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's. But, you know, I got one more thing. This Friday is Juneteenth.
• 19:38
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, it's. It's a great holiday, you know, all that. And I was thinking about how long it took for them to get this federal holiday and stuff like that. And then I started thinking back about MLK Day and, you know, we Always talk about Florida and Arizona, right? You know, being the freaky states and stuff like that. And then I realized that Arizona was the last state to get on board to make it a federal holiday for.
• 20:10
  Speaker A: For mlk.
• 20:11
  Speaker B: Yeah. For MLK Day. I think to myself, boy, boy, you've got to be really fucking racist not to want a paid holiday. Yeah, yeah. You know, you really have to be racist to say. Say, you mean I don't have to go to work and you're gonna pay me, right? That MLK guy. No way.
• 20:31
  Speaker A: Sure, sure.
• 20:32
  Speaker B: You know.
• 20:32
  Speaker A: Well, I guess they're committed.
• 20:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, they. They finally passed it right on.
• 20:37
  Speaker C: I think they like to drink when they hunt in Arizona, too.
• 20:40
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I could say that. It's not. There's not a ton of people in Arizona. It's a lot of empty space, right?
• 20:47
  Speaker C: I. I think so. Desert.
• 20:49
  Speaker A: Desert, yeah.
• 20:50
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:51
  Speaker A: I do love the desert, but in. Only in small doses. Can't take the dry heat. People. People seem to love it, but not me. Well, can we get to our guest here?
• 21:01
  Speaker B: You like the humidity heat?
• 21:03
  Speaker A: I do like the humidity, yeah.
• 21:05
  Speaker C: I like it to feel like the womb.
• 21:07
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 21:07
  Speaker C: I want to be 98.6 degrees and about 98% humidity.
• 21:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 21:12
  Speaker C: I want to feel that's like. I've never left the womb.
• 21:15
  Speaker B: I don't like to change my underwear every day down here. You have to with this humidity, man.
• 21:21
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 21:21
  Speaker B: You know, I'd rather have that dry heat going through my balls.
• 21:26
  Speaker A: No, no, no, I don't care.
• 21:28
  Speaker C: It dries out your skin. Look at this. Not a wrinkle. 57 years old.
• 21:31
  Speaker A: That's right, baby. Soft.
• 21:33
  Speaker C: It just stays. It's just like.
• 21:35
  Speaker B: You're only 57.
• 21:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, I'm only 57.
• 21:38
  Speaker B: You'll get them. Don't worry about it. You already went bald.
• 21:40
  Speaker C: I know. Yeah, exactly.
• 21:42
  Speaker B: You already has.
• 21:44
  Speaker A: Nothing to do with the humidity, though. Well, let's get our guest in here.
• 21:48
  Speaker B: All right.
• 21:48
  Speaker A: Well, it's a guest I've known for, for a good long time. He's a terrific drummer, guitar player, songwriter, singer. He plays with bands such as Narcissi, the Bonapartes, the Low Amps. Did a lot of jobs with the great John Sinclair, also with Carlo Ditta, and has a band up there in a beat of where he lives, the Abitols. And he's also an artist and a sausage maker, and.
• 22:17
  Speaker C: That's right.
• 22:17
  Speaker A: So we're going to get into all that, find out. Maybe find out how the sausage is made before it's all.
• 22:21
  Speaker C: Oh, absolutely.
• 22:22
  Speaker A: So we're going to get into all that and more. But without further ado, the great Mr. Anthony Donato. Welcome, Anthony.
• 22:30
  Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me, y'.
• 22:31
  Speaker B: All.
• 22:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Glad you could do it. And you, you brave the potential
• 22:37
  Speaker C: tropical storm? Yeah, yeah.
• 22:38
  Speaker A: Forming out in the Gulf. You came, came down from Abita.
• 22:41
  Speaker C: Being from south Louisiana, we don't really, you know, tropical storm, like, okay, I can make it to the store.
• 22:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's not no big deal.
• 22:48
  Speaker C: Yeah, right, right, right.
• 22:49
  Speaker A: Tell us, tell us a little bit about your background. You're not from New Orleans.
• 22:52
  Speaker C: I am not from New Orleans. I'm from a little town called New Iberia, Louisiana.
• 22:57
  Speaker A: New I.
• 22:57
  Speaker C: About two and a half hours west of here.
• 23:00
  Speaker A: Okay. Now, the Donato family been in. Been in New Iberia for some time.
• 23:05
  Speaker C: No, not at all. My dad was from Brooklyn and my mom was from north Louisiana. And when my dad got out of Korea, he went to broadcasting school. And they said, hey, if you make it through this program, we promise you you will get you a job. And he was like, cool, I'm making the three. He's like, he's, you know, he said only like 40 of the guys, it's like only about 12 of them made it through the whole program. And he's like thinking, boy, yeah, I'm going to 30 Rock. I'm gonna be working in Manhattan. This is gonna be so cool. And they're like, hey, congratulations. They hand him his degree and, oh, by the way, your job is in New Iberia, Louisiana, at knir. And he's like, where is that? Like, he had no idea where Louisiana was, I don't think. And he ended up down here.
• 23:50
  Speaker A: Huh. So he must have liked it, huh?
• 23:52
  Speaker C: I think so. I think he did. Yeah.
• 23:55
  Speaker A: Right on. So did he. Was that a long time career for him?
• 23:59
  Speaker C: Yes, yeah. He was in radio for decades. And it was kind of cool because he's kind of like a little. He was not kind. He was a local celebrity because in the 60s, radio in south Louis, not everybody had TVs, everybody had a radio. So my dad was still in the radio was still kind of the main. The big dog.
• 24:15
  Speaker B: So he was playing music or doing news or doing everything.
• 24:18
  Speaker C: He was doing everything and that. And at that time, he was more. More the on the air guy. Like, he was. He went into like sales and managing the stations and all that stuff. But as a younger man, he was a dj, he was the news guy, he was the weather guy.
• 24:31
  Speaker B: Right.
• 24:31
  Speaker C: He did like the, you know, he
• 24:34
  Speaker B: would go in hurricanes, doing AM and fm.
• 24:38
  Speaker C: If you had fm, yes, they had fm.
• 24:40
  Speaker A: Really?
• 24:40
  Speaker C: He was working at a AM station, but he has worked. He did work at FM stations too.
• 24:46
  Speaker B: Huh.
• 24:46
  Speaker A: So that your whole time. Time growing up, he was. That was his business that he was in?
• 24:50
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, he was. And he like. And he would. He. For a long time. He did a lot of the commercials too. And like my. At 5 years old, I did my first commercial for a local eatery called Cornies. And I was like, I like Corny's hot dogs and corn dogs. And that was my line.
• 25:09
  Speaker A: Just a radio commercial?
• 25:10
  Speaker C: Yeah, radio commercial.
• 25:11
  Speaker A: Nice, nice. So did the. Did. Were you bitten by the showbiz bug early on?
• 25:17
  Speaker C: Maybe. I don't. I don't really. I like that. I like doing the radio stuff, but like as far as music and Stu, I didn't have. I went to a little bitty school. Didn't have much of an arts program or anything like that. I thought music musicians were like magic, you know. I don't know how they do that. I love music. We always played it. But I was like. It was just like this foreign entity of. Wow. And then a buddy of mine learned how to play the drums and I was like, well, if that guy can do it, geez. You know. And he like. And I got him to show me a little. I like the simplest drum beat. And I kind of went from there.
• 25:49
  Speaker A: Huh. Well. So down in New. New Iberia, did they have a lot of local bands playing? They have.
• 25:57
  Speaker C: Oh yeah, yeah. That was. They were like, you know, in high school we had the heavy metal bands. My buddy that taught me how to band called Keystone and they would do like Rush covers and they'd, you know, all these heavy metal or more. Even more heavier heavy metal kind of stuff. And I can remember, yeah, it was pretty vibrant, you know. Like a bunch of the VFW halls around New Iberia were full of little rock bands. Just about any weekend on any given weekend, you know.
• 26:23
  Speaker A: Right. Because there wasn't like a ton of stuff to do. So if you put on a show like that probably. Probably be pretty well attended.
• 26:28
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And. And the people, it. It's a fun. The people there like to party, you know, so if you give them a little chance to, they'll take full advantage of it.
• 26:38
  Speaker B: Right Now, I'm assuming since your dad was from Brooklyn and he sent down here, he didn't automatically become like a drunk hunter. It was tired. None of that was around?
• 26:49
  Speaker C: No, no, no, it was around. But I can remember him telling me like the first Time. Like, the dudes, they're like, hey, Mal, come hunting with us. And he's like, I've never been hunting. What do you do? And they're like, well, you got to get up at like 3, 4 o' clock in the morning. And he's like, okay, that's X. They're like, well, then it's going to be really cold, so you're going to need some really warm clothes. He's like, ah, cold, huh, X? He's like, where are we going? We go out into the marsh. Oh, cold, wet out in the marsh. No, I don't enjoy you boys. Yeah.
• 27:18
  Speaker A: What's the upside?
• 27:20
  Speaker B: All right, the drinking, I guess to
• 27:23
  Speaker A: get away from your family or something.
• 27:25
  Speaker B: I don't know. That may have good that you never really got introduced to that. I mean, he didn't. I guess he just wasn't turned on by.
• 27:32
  Speaker C: No, no. And he, he had been like a. He was a combat veteran, so he didn't want to play with guns anymore.
• 27:37
  Speaker B: He was like, yeah, sure.
• 27:38
  Speaker C: Not enough of that, boys, I'll have fun.
• 27:40
  Speaker B: Like, he was. Korea, you said yes. Okay, Korea. So, yeah, that was. Yeah. Okay, now what about like fishing did he get.
• 27:47
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, he loved that.
• 27:48
  Speaker B: He loved fish.
• 27:49
  Speaker C: He loved fishing. We had a boat. We usually had a boat around and he would drag us out there.
• 27:54
  Speaker B: And how many of you, your mom and your. How many kids?
• 27:57
  Speaker C: I had one brother and one sister. They're both older than me.
• 28:00
  Speaker B: All right, so the fishing was there.
• 28:03
  Speaker C: Fishing was definitely there.
• 28:04
  Speaker B: Okay, now, being from Brooklyn, does he
• 28:08
  Speaker C: or did he like, had no idea how to fish?
• 28:10
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, but.
• 28:11
  Speaker C: Yeah, probably had no idea how to fish. But he tried, he tried the bodies.
• 28:19
  Speaker B: But I mean, did he get into to automatically, like? Because I'm sure being at a radio station and having to promote businesses and stuff, he's having to go to the hot dog eating contest or across eating
• 28:31
  Speaker C: contest and he would cover those. He would go and he was the guy.
• 28:35
  Speaker B: Did he like that? Did he like crawfish?
• 28:38
  Speaker C: Oh, he, he was all right. He ate it. He wasn't like crazy about or anything, but he was fine with it.
• 28:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, but he liked the local color aspect of it.
• 28:46
  Speaker C: Yeah. And he, and he had fun with it. You know, he realized he was the Brooklyn kid and like, he made it work for him. He said the first thing he ever did, like, he got to New Iberia and they sent him to a livestock auction. And the main guy that they hired to call the livestock auction was Paul Harvey.
• 29:06
  Speaker B: Oh, wow.
• 29:07
  Speaker C: And his first show was Paul Harvey was doing it, and he was. The guy in the pit. Is that. Paul Harvey would be like, okay, I'm going to throw it down to Mal in the. In the pit, like, with the Animals. And my dad just was like, hey, yeah. Oh, you know, he was just, you know, like, Brooklyn Kid Fresh, never seen a pig. Was like. Just like. And he said, paul Harvey and I had a blast because he played into it and I played into it, and we just had fun with it the whole day.
• 29:32
  Speaker A: Nice. Well, so are you leaving? Going out, like, to New Orleans to see. See shows as a. As a high school student or in
• 29:44
  Speaker C: high school, we could hit. We. I would hit Lafayette.
• 29:46
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:46
  Speaker C: There was this place, the Grant Street Dance Hall.
• 29:49
  Speaker A: Oh, sure. Yeah. Played there many times.
• 29:51
  Speaker C: I think I made fake IDs to go and see the blue runners and dash rip rock there. When I was in high school, there was another little place that came along called Jerry's, and they would pull in kind of the punk bands.
• 30:04
  Speaker B: What year is this?
• 30:06
  Speaker C: 86, 85, 86, 87. Somewhere in there. Didn't start hitting New Orleans, really, until I went to college.
• 30:13
  Speaker A: Okay, now, were you starting to. You're playing drums already by the time you're going to see these shows?
• 30:18
  Speaker C: No, no, no.
• 30:18
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 30:20
  Speaker C: I started playing in college. Really. And that was just very, like. Just with partners. There was no bands. I was not in a. There was nothing organized or anything like that, so.
• 30:30
  Speaker A: So you escaped New Iberia by going to lsu?
• 30:33
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 30:34
  Speaker A: And what did you go to school for?
• 30:37
  Speaker C: I went to school to go to school.
• 30:39
  Speaker A: Okay, sure, right.
• 30:40
  Speaker C: I saw Animal House when I was, like, in fifth grade, and I was like, I want to go to college.
• 30:44
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker C: So that's the way I kind of handled it.
• 30:48
  Speaker B: All right.
• 30:48
  Speaker C: But I did really learn how to work bureaucracy. You know, I could write. They would. You know, they tried to throw me out. And I would write a letter to the. To the board of supervisors, and they would be like, oh, it's cool. You can stay.
• 31:00
  Speaker B: What school is this?
• 31:01
  Speaker C: Lsu.
• 31:01
  Speaker B: Oh, lsu.
• 31:02
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That seems about right.
• 31:05
  Speaker C: Yeah, it was. It was pretty cool. But I had.
• 31:08
  Speaker B: I.
• 31:08
  Speaker C: Pretty good writing skills. Like, I tested out a freshman English, so I could. I had. I had a little bit of, you know, they could see that I was like, oh, this kid's not completely, you know, potential. Like, he's got a little potential.
• 31:19
  Speaker B: He's not saying welcome in.
• 31:21
  Speaker C: No, I did not say welcome in.
• 31:24
  Speaker B: Saying welcome, yes, you're smart.
• 31:25
  Speaker C: And I learned. I learned the grammar. I remember thinking that was Important like where to put the commas and the periods and all that. That's like.
• 31:32
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 31:33
  Speaker C: Writing punctuation. Punctuation.
• 31:35
  Speaker B: Here at the. At the two lane over here. Yeah, right. You know.
• 31:40
  Speaker A: You know, stay right on the mic, man.
• 31:43
  Speaker B: Professors and stuff like that, you know?
• 31:45
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 31:46
  Speaker B: My grammar is just awful, you know, So I thank goodness for. For the spell check.
• 31:50
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The most useful class I ever took was called business writing or business. It was something like that, but it just taught you how to pre.
• 31:59
  Speaker B: How to.
• 32:00
  Speaker C: How to write a letter. Like, where your name goes, where the business name goes, where your name goes, how you started, how you ended.
• 32:07
  Speaker B: Where is it? The same way on the computer, though.
• 32:10
  Speaker C: That must be. It's different now because this was all, like, typewriters and hand. You know, your hand sign and all that.
• 32:16
  Speaker B: Liquid paper.
• 32:17
  Speaker C: Yeah. I'm part of the old school. It's all obsolete now. So whatever I learned is probably completely useless.
• 32:24
  Speaker B: Right.
• 32:24
  Speaker C: Unless I'm, like, gonna go back to the typewriter, which fonts. And who's gonna open up an envelope? What. What company still accepts, like, paper letters? Like, it's all emails now. Right. You can't really mail a letter to anybody now.
• 32:37
  Speaker A: I had to head to mail.
• 32:38
  Speaker B: Unless it has anthrax in it.
• 32:40
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 32:40
  Speaker A: To mail a certified letter to a tenant trying to evict the other day.
• 32:44
  Speaker C: So that's. That's touchy, huh?
• 32:48
  Speaker A: Still got to do it.
• 32:48
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 32:49
  Speaker A: It's the first one I've ever had to do that with. This guy's going bad on me. Good tenants go bad. Well, so. So you graduate from LSU or.
• 32:58
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think that the unit. The institution and I decided that there was no longer a future. Yeah. Not. Not a. Yeah. I had done everything I had meant to do there.
• 33:09
  Speaker A: I understand. Manny and I had similar experience in college. So from there, you don't go back to New Iberia.
• 33:15
  Speaker C: You go to New Orleans. Bright lights, big city, New Orleans. Right into the Quarter. Got a place in the Quarter. Got a job at the rib room. Oh, and started working.
• 33:25
  Speaker B: Just started bitching about tips.
• 33:29
  Speaker A: Working as a waiter. Working.
• 33:31
  Speaker C: Yeah. Waiter. As a waiter.
• 33:33
  Speaker B: There's a rib room still here?
• 33:35
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 33:36
  Speaker B: Where is it?
• 33:37
  Speaker C: At the Omni Royal Orleans. It's the restaurant in there.
• 33:40
  Speaker A: Oh, right, right, right.
• 33:41
  Speaker C: And it's impressive, dude.
• 33:42
  Speaker B: Is it?
• 33:43
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 33:43
  Speaker C: They have prime rib lunches, Dude. They have a whole wall of prime ribs on our rotisserie. Own rotisseries. Just like. And I was like, yeah, this is going to be a good place to work.
• 33:53
  Speaker A: So you had an apartment there in the French Quarter?
• 33:55
  Speaker C: Yes, I have a little apartment in the French Quarter.
• 33:57
  Speaker A: That's when. And. And what year was this? It's probably early 90s.
• 34:01
  Speaker C: Early mid-90s. Yeah.
• 34:03
  Speaker A: Okay. Crack 394 apartments were still relatively cheap.
• 34:07
  Speaker C: Yes. I never paid more than $425 a month for an apartment in the French Quarter. And I was in the French quarter. I paid 375 in the French Quarter. And when I got evicted from that one, not that I was a bad tenant, but I was loud, I guess, from my neighbors.
• 34:23
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 34:23
  Speaker C: And then I went to middle Loud in the Quarter.
• 34:27
  Speaker B: How did you get evicted for that?
• 34:29
  Speaker C: I don't know. I don't know how you do that, but I did it.
• 34:33
  Speaker A: Now you're. You're playing drums at this point, right?
• 34:36
  Speaker C: Not yet.
• 34:37
  Speaker A: No. Okay.
• 34:37
  Speaker C: Not yet. I. I mean, I kind of know he's eating ribs.
• 34:41
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 34:41
  Speaker C: So I started playing drums. I moved to Mid City. Like, I gotten thrown out of the place on in the Quarter and I went to my buddy, the, the manager. I was working at a place called the Crescent Brewhouse. And the guy that was managing was moving back to Florida. And he's like, hey, man, I gotta. I'm. My pad in Mid City on Morpaw is gonna be open. You want it? And I was like, absolutely, dude, I need a house. I was kind of couch surfing and I move into the place. And speaking of that first show in, in the Grant Street Dance Hall, I get in touch with the landlord. He's like, oh, yeah, I'll be over there at the, at the other table. Antenna. It's a shotgun half. You know, we had half a shotgun. He's like, just knock on the other guy's door. And I knock on the other guy's door and it's Rob Savoy.
• 35:25
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 35:25
  Speaker C: And I was like, hey man, you play for the Blue Runners? And he was like, yeah, I did. And I was like, yeah, it's nice to meet you. Whatever. So I lived next door to Rob Savoy for years.
• 35:33
  Speaker A: Nice shout out to Rob Savoy.
• 35:35
  Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely, man. Great guy.
• 35:36
  Speaker A: Had many invitations to the show buddies. He has cooler heads prevail. He says, yeah, with my job, my job, I really can't.
• 35:46
  Speaker C: Yeah, he's got a stake.
• 35:47
  Speaker B: What does he do?
• 35:49
  Speaker A: He works for Jazz Fest. He does a lot of the booking and stuff, but it's a high profile gig. He's a respectable guy.
• 35:56
  Speaker C: Another bass player looking man.
• 35:58
  Speaker B: Let me tell you that.
• 36:00
  Speaker A: He does a terrific job.
• 36:02
  Speaker C: He's a fun neighbor too. Yeah, he was with he was with Cowboy Mouth. Most of the time I was living with him.
• 36:07
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 36:08
  Speaker C: And he would be like, hey, like Jazz Fest mornings, I'd be out on a stoop. He's like, you're going out? I was like, nah, I don't think so, man. I was like, I wouldn't mind going to get some lunch out there. He's like, hey. I was like. And he would come back and slap an all access pass on me. Oh, nice. Go get some lunch, bro. And he's like, you got to go in the Music street gate. I'm like, right on. Mosey on in. Do what I want to do. It's like, have a brass pass before. Brass.
• 36:29
  Speaker A: Sure, sure, sure. Well, well, I was asking you earlier today, like, what some of the. The bands that you'd, like, played with, and you mentioned this band. Soup Chain.
• 36:39
  Speaker C: Soup Chain. That's the first one.
• 36:41
  Speaker A: Now, did it have the guy named Soup Chain?
• 36:43
  Speaker C: Yes. Yes.
• 36:44
  Speaker B: So.
• 36:44
  Speaker A: Well, we were Manny.
• 36:46
  Speaker C: It was his alias.
• 36:47
  Speaker A: Manny. And I remember. I don't even know what his real name is, and don't tell me, but Manny and I remember Soup Chain from. You can tell me from the Circle Bar days.
• 36:55
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's him.
• 36:57
  Speaker A: He was. He was there. So you played in a band with him?
• 36:59
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 37:00
  Speaker A: Well, that must have been an experience. He's quite a. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:04
  Speaker C: Soup Chain was. Is. He was nuts. He was a really genuinely nuts guy, but super fun to play with because he was not quite the Jay Holland of.
• 37:17
  Speaker B: He's.
• 37:18
  Speaker C: He's not quite had. He didn't have Jay. As many moves as Jay Holland has, but he had some great guitar moves.
• 37:24
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 37:24
  Speaker C: And a great player.
• 37:25
  Speaker A: Narcissity.
• 37:26
  Speaker C: Jay Holland from Narcissi is by far the finest guitar move. Like w. Just performer.
• 37:33
  Speaker A: He'll do things that.
• 37:34
  Speaker B: That.
• 37:35
  Speaker A: Not only have you never seen anyone do this. You think, how did he even think that up?
• 37:41
  Speaker C: Yes, yes.
• 37:41
  Speaker A: Like, how did that ever occur to him? You know, like we've seen.
• 37:45
  Speaker C: Would make you giggle. Jay Holland kind of makes you go, huh? Wait a second.
• 37:50
  Speaker A: So who else was in that Soup Chain band?
• 37:52
  Speaker C: This guy named Alan Lef Floor, who I think plays for a guy named Jordan Thibodeau now. Cajun guy out of Lafayette.
• 37:59
  Speaker A: Oh, I know Jordan Thibodeau. I just. I just was in. In Hawaii with him.
• 38:04
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 38:05
  Speaker A: He's. He's terrific, man. Jordan.
• 38:06
  Speaker C: I have not seen him or heard him play, but I think Allen is playing with. His name's Alan LaFleur.
• 38:11
  Speaker A: Oh, man. Yeah. Jordan's Powerful man. He, he just came and performed by himself on fiddle and singing and he play the, the song on and then he would sing a couple of choruses acapella and then back to the, to the fiddle. And the audience at the Big Island Jazz and Blues Festival was wrapped. You could hear a pin drop as he was doing this, man. He followed like a all star jazz group with John Patitucci and all these heavy dudes, you know.
• 38:42
  Speaker C: And he goes up with his fiddle
• 38:44
  Speaker A: and there was not a dry seat in the house after that. And I was watching the, the chicks watched Jordan. I was like, holy cow.
• 38:50
  Speaker C: Oh yeah.
• 38:51
  Speaker B: They were pissing in their pants.
• 38:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's an older crowd. No, no, no, they were, they were getting.
• 38:57
  Speaker B: I remember when I lived at the Circle Bar, I lived on the top floor of the Circle Bar and I didn't have to get up every morning around 7 to go to work. And every morning I'd get up, I'd look out the window, at least Circle. And I'd see Soup Chain on his bikes. Bicycle school. So he's coming back from the methadone clinic. Yeah, I knew, I was like, he's coming back from the Method and I'm up. So he was kind of like my alarm clock.
• 39:22
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 39:22
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 39:22
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 39:22
  Speaker A: Like clockwork, right?
• 39:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Well, it's time for me to get going.
• 39:26
  Speaker C: I gave him a few rides to the methadone clinic. He was the first kind of the guy with that addiction problem that I had to deal with.
• 39:35
  Speaker B: Right, yeah. The methadone addiction or the other, the other addiction. Yeah.
• 39:39
  Speaker C: He was much better on methadone.
• 39:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well then you get hooked on that though.
• 39:45
  Speaker A: Yeah. Liquid handcuffs they call it.
• 39:47
  Speaker C: He's, he is doing fine. He's clean and sober now and he's on back on the west coast. He was from the west coast.
• 39:54
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 39:55
  Speaker C: He only split there because he had some, well, drug related legal problems.
• 40:01
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 40:04
  Speaker C: That's why he was Suit Chain. It was his alias.
• 40:06
  Speaker B: Right.
• 40:07
  Speaker C: And then he, once he got that straightened out and moved back out there.
• 40:10
  Speaker B: Now I, I lucky him.
• 40:12
  Speaker A: I understand that my old, old collaborator Alex Chilton produced a record on you guys when you were living at that Maripa house.
• 40:22
  Speaker C: Yeah, he did, man. It was amazing.
• 40:25
  Speaker A: Well, he always misfits, you know, so see him taking, taking to liking the soup change.
• 40:30
  Speaker C: Yeah. The first show I ever played it was a. Was at the Mermaid Lounge. And the first show I played New Orleans was at the Mermaid Lounge and I opened it open for Alex and, and John Sinclair's band.
• 40:42
  Speaker A: Oh okay.
• 40:42
  Speaker C: At the time, the Blue Scholars, they were on the bill, right? And I ended up playing with both of those dudes, which is kind of funny. I had never. I would never imagine me playing with those guys at the time I played that gig because it was like, I was very rudimentary with little.
• 40:57
  Speaker A: Little did you know, A little bit. I know you're gonna cross paths.
• 41:01
  Speaker C: I was gonna cross paths with both of them again. Alex was a lot sooner than. Than John. Alex was immediate. Like, that first show, I can remember Alex, like, walking by to put his stuff by and looking at me while I was playing, going and giving me a little head nod, kind of shaking his finger at me, like, yeah, man, you got it. You're in there.
• 41:17
  Speaker A: I know you're doing that.
• 41:18
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:19
  Speaker C: And he was. And then I can remember getting a call from Soup Chain at work, and he's like, hey, man, can you come play a show at the Mermaid tonight? And it was already like, 10:30 at night. I was like, well, what time? He's like, whenever you get here, just get here as soon as you can. I was like, okay. By the time I get there, it's like midnight. There's only one person in the place, and it's Alex.
• 41:38
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 41:39
  Speaker C: And we set up and we play a show for him and. And the bartender, and he's having a blast. He's cackling us, and he's just. Yeah, he's just. And we're having a blast, and we're just having fun. And. And after that, like, I saw him at the. He lived in the same neighborhood as I did, and I saw him at Whole Foods one day where the Cansecos is now. There used to be a Whole Foods?
• 42:02
  Speaker B: Sure, yeah.
• 42:02
  Speaker C: And he's like, hey, man, I want to record your band. And I was like, really? And I was like, yeah, okay, let me talk to the guys and see what. And eventually it was, you know, they cool. He came into my house and in our front room with my four track. My tact cassette. Four track.
• 42:20
  Speaker A: Four track, yeah.
• 42:21
  Speaker C: And recorded us.
• 42:22
  Speaker B: And you're still working at the rib room at this time?
• 42:26
  Speaker C: No, I had moved on from the rib room and had. By this time, I was probably in my eighth or ninth restaurant job.
• 42:33
  Speaker B: Okay, sure.
• 42:34
  Speaker C: So I worked. I worked the waiter waiting tables because I would go out and play rock shows at night and sometimes miss a shift or whatever. I was right. An irresponsible young man. But, you know, you live and learn
• 42:47
  Speaker A: the time to do that.
• 42:48
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 42:48
  Speaker A: Well, Manny, I think it's about that time. Why don't you tell the troubled nation what's going.
• 42:54
  Speaker B: Hey, listen, we gonna take a break. The nation knows what to do. And we'll be right back.
• 43:15
  Speaker D: They threw me in the next night when I thought it was over. You threw me out to dogs. They were getting their nails cut. Your parasite slipping into the river. You're dealing turned savior and indeed giver. You threw me in a mess snake. You throw me a nasty snakes. You set you free. You want to be just a little mixed up. You're a parasite slipping into the big one. You're a dear turned slave idea giver. You turn me out of nasty snake.
• 44:34
  Speaker A: And we're back, lesbians, back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. I am Renee Coleman, back with our guest, Mr. Anthony Donato. Now, Anthony, I know you know you were a podcaster for a while, so you understand how these things work. You know, this is a listener supported operation here.
• 44:53
  Speaker C: Absolutely.
• 44:54
  Speaker A: Troubled Men podcast. And we have a Venmo link and a PayPal link in the show, notes of every show, as well as the Facebook page that we post these.
• 45:05
  Speaker C: So how can people give you money, Renee?
• 45:07
  Speaker A: Well, so they can get on those links and they can, you know, underwrite some cocktails for us, underwrite the operating expenses, hosting costs of this. And these are the Troublemen podcast stickers. So let me present you.
• 45:22
  Speaker C: And that's troubledmenpodcast.castros.com yes, but that's where
• 45:28
  Speaker A: you can see the show. But if you just do a search for Troublemen podcast, it will come up and it's, it's available anywhere. Well, if you're listening to this, if
• 45:38
  Speaker B: you're hearing we're number one in Slovenia, baby.
• 45:41
  Speaker A: Number one in Serbia.
• 45:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, Serbia.
• 45:44
  Speaker A: So also we have the, the Patreon page, the links, right, there you go.
• 45:48
  Speaker C: That's what you guys need to go on. We have Patreon's the way to go.
• 45:52
  Speaker A: Let me, let me get this out here. Yes, we have a handful of patrons that are supporting us week in and week out. You can join that number for small regular fee. And also we have the Troubleman podcast T shirt link there. So you can jump on that T shirt. Yep. And rate, review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it. Give us five stars. Helps us a lot. Cost you nothing. And also follow us on social media, Instagram and Facebook. And you know, tell your friends about the Troublemen podcast. Tell your enemies too. I'll be out on the road with the Iguanas and also Sunny Landreth all summer long. You can find those dates in the link I have to the iguanas.com dates page, as well as my. The Renee Coleman Facebook page, which I post all of my dates there. And yeah, you can find me. I'll be all over the place. That's Northwest, Northeast, Midwest. And it's a. Enough of that. Back to our guest, the great Mr. Anthony Donato. Now, Anthony, so we were talking about, you know, you playing with Soup Chain. And. And I think is it. Was it right about this time that you. That you meet Jay Holland? How do you get involved in. In Narcissi?
• 47:07
  Speaker C: Yes. I had met Jay Holland by this time from playing at Juan's Flying Burrito. I think his. He had a man called Dentist Team
• 47:19
  Speaker B: Thompson.
• 47:19
  Speaker A: I just saw Austin Thompson in. In Nashville.
• 47:22
  Speaker C: Oh, how is he?
• 47:23
  Speaker A: He looks great. He's six years clean and sober.
• 47:26
  Speaker C: Nice.
• 47:27
  Speaker A: And now it's good because. Because, you know, some people, even when they're totally sober, seem kind of drunk.
• 47:34
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 47:34
  Speaker A: You know, he. He's the tame. He seems a little loopy, you know, but it's good in a good way.
• 47:40
  Speaker C: But when he was drunk, he seemed just dry and. And simply fine. Like I never could. I never like, gee, Austin's really drunk. I've never. I never had that.
• 47:48
  Speaker A: Well, anyway, so he was. He was looking great. He was there with his. His. His lovely partner, companion, wife, whatever she is. And yeah, it's great to see him. So. So Dentine. So you. You met Jay Holland?
• 48:02
  Speaker C: I met Jay Holland and still get dentine gum.
• 48:06
  Speaker B: I don't see.
• 48:07
  Speaker A: Huh.
• 48:08
  Speaker B: No, I think that's gone.
• 48:09
  Speaker A: Really?
• 48:10
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 48:10
  Speaker C: That's a shame.
• 48:11
  Speaker A: I think you can still get a blackjack gum.
• 48:15
  Speaker B: You want.
• 48:15
  Speaker C: You can if you want it.
• 48:16
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 48:17
  Speaker A: I mean, it's weird.
• 48:19
  Speaker B: What about Trident? Can you get Trident?
• 48:21
  Speaker C: Yes, absolutely.
• 48:22
  Speaker B: Is it still around?
• 48:22
  Speaker C: It's still around.
• 48:23
  Speaker B: See it?
• 48:24
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 48:24
  Speaker C: My daughter gets it. I only know that because, like, she goes to. I give her a ride to work and she'll pop some mint like a gun. It's usually Trident, so I'm like, oh,
• 48:32
  Speaker B: good to like the cinnamon tray.
• 48:35
  Speaker A: That's the main one.
• 48:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I don't chew gum anymore, though, so.
• 48:40
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's bad for your teeth, I think.
• 48:42
  Speaker B: It's really bad.
• 48:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's a lot of sugar.
• 48:44
  Speaker C: Yeah. So back to Jay Holland and Narcissi and how that all happened at the time. And Alex actually maybe kind of plays into this a little bit too. I seen Dentin. I knew Jay Holland. I knew that his drummer from Dentin had moved away and I was like, jay, man, we should jam. And he kind of was like, h. Maybe so, man. I don't know. And he was like, almost blow me off, but not quite. And I was playing a show at the Matador with this band called Maria and the Aftermath. I was playing drums for. And I can remember being on this is. This is my favorite Alex story. I was like. I remember playing that gig, being on stage, playing, and, like, just getting, like, smattering. Just no. No reaction from the audience whatsoever. And I'm like, why am I doing this? Why am I playing music? This makes no sense. I'm not making any money. This is blah, blah. And we start another song, and I see this guy come popping out at the end of the bar, and it's Alex. And he, like, jumps up on stage and starts. He grabs a tambourine and starts playing tambourine with me with the. To the song. And Jay Holland is in the audience, and. And. And I'm like, hey, man, Alex, thanks for. Thanks for showing up. Appreciate it, you know? And he's like, man, you're a great drummer. You make any band sound good. And he just starts pumping my ego. And, like, I hang out with him, and he's talking to me at the bar, and I think, Jay can hear all this, or at least he sees Alex get up and chant with me. And I think that made Jay go, oh, I think I'm gonna grab that guy.
• 50:15
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 50:16
  Speaker C: While he's. He's just offered. He wanted me. He wanted to play with me, so let's see what he can do.
• 50:20
  Speaker A: Alex Jones gave you some credibility.
• 50:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think he still gave me tons of credibility with the hipsters, for sure.
• 50:26
  Speaker A: Right on.
• 50:28
  Speaker C: Because I didn't have any before.
• 50:29
  Speaker A: Well, that's the thing about Alex is he didn't care what anybody else thought about something. If he liked something.
• 50:35
  Speaker C: Yes, He.
• 50:36
  Speaker A: That's all. All the convincing he needed, you know? And yeah, he would. He would like stuff that a lot of other people Not. Not saying you, but a lot of other people would think was, like, corny or. Or bad. And he. And he.
• 50:49
  Speaker C: Bad? Yeah, people thought I was bad, that's for sure.
• 50:51
  Speaker A: Cared.
• 50:53
  Speaker C: He saw it in me. He saw something. He just. Like, I can. That first man soup chain. Those dudes were always like, you need to take a lesson. And Alex was like, they're idiots, dude. Don't listen to the word they say. Listen to nothing they say. Really? And he was, like, looking at me, you know, dead eye, like, boom. Like, I'm not gonna do this if you listen to them.
• 51:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 51:11
  Speaker C: But basically, when he was recording us, they made me go and take a lesson. Like, you got to go take a lesson. We'll pay for it. So I went to Ray Fransen's and took a lesson. And I told Alex that right before we recorded. And he, like, dropped everything and said, you got to forget everything they told you or I'm leaving. And I was like, okay, cool, man. And he hated those other dudes because of that. I remember him looking over at him like, what are you, stupid? You have a piece of clay that you can mold into anything, and you're going to go tell him to go to a.
• 51:38
  Speaker A: You're going to ruin this lesson.
• 51:39
  Speaker C: Yeah, you're going to ruin this guy.
• 51:41
  Speaker A: Okay, so back to Jay Holland. And so. So Jay Holland now is taking you seriously.
• 51:47
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 51:47
  Speaker A: But he wasn't formed yet, right?
• 51:49
  Speaker C: No, no, not yet. And then after that, very shortly after that show, Jay Holland got in touch with me and we went up to his jam room and the. The two lane. The two lane. He had one in that building off yes.
• 52:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. Old Fountain Blow Hotel.
• 52:06
  Speaker C: And we kicked like three songs immediately. Pow. Like, it happened. And it's like, all right, this is going to work. And we had the energy. Just the two piece, two pieces energy. And then we had a show scheduled, and Jerry went to a crawfish boil, like the night before, or like a. It may have been not the night before, but a few days before. He's at a crawfish boil and he cut his finger and he was playing. I guess it was the finger, the thumb or something. Something that he played the bass notes with. He had a whole rig split. Like he would play. His bass springs were split into basics. And he was. He had this very complicated rig. And once he couldn't play the bass parts with his thumb, that's when he called Bill and was like, hey, I need a bass player.
• 52:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 52:48
  Speaker C: And that's when the. And he came in. And that's when Narcissi, Bill. Yes.
• 52:53
  Speaker A: And you guys have been a stable trio for what going on?
• 52:57
  Speaker C: We were active for a long time. We kind of. We're not that active right now. We play every once in a while. But.
• 53:04
  Speaker A: But I just saw you. You.
• 53:05
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 53:06
  Speaker A: Played the past to Chaz Fest.
• 53:08
  Speaker C: Chaz Fest? Yeah.
• 53:09
  Speaker A: Because. Because they're keeping us alive. Narcissi was always a closer. A closer for. For Chaz Fest. You're one of Alex McMurray's favorite bands, as. You are one of my favorite bands, as there's only A couple of bands I'll leave my house to go see, and Narcissus is one of them.
• 53:27
  Speaker C: That's awesome.
• 53:28
  Speaker A: And because as we were talking before about Jay Holland, like, you know, you. You've seen people do guitar heroics, but you've never seen. I've never seen someone, like, stick the headstock of the guitar down there and then. And then unbutton his shirt and rebutton it with the guitar under the shirt. Yeah. And then all the time, while the song is still going, yes.
• 53:52
  Speaker C: And everything's nothing. Everything's musical.
• 53:54
  Speaker A: You and Bill are still playing away, and Jay is playing shit that's musical through his shirt, and you're going, how is this guy stabbing with his fingers through his shirt? And it still is musical.
• 54:06
  Speaker C: You gave him the highest compliment I've ever heard anyone give somebody. And you said, jay, I've been in show business for over 35 years. I've seen you three times, and every time I've seen seen you, I've seen something I've never seen before.
• 54:19
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 54:19
  Speaker C: No, and that sums up Narcissi. You're gonna see something you haven't seen before if you come and see us.
• 54:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. No, it's. It's something to behold, man. Now, I was. I was disappointed. This last Chaz Fest is. You guys got on kind of late and you only had, like, a 15 minute set.
• 54:36
  Speaker C: 15 minutes.
• 54:36
  Speaker A: I think I missed, like, the first seven minutes of it because I didn't realize you were out there. I thought you're gonna start inside.
• 54:42
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah. I don't know. I don't get much information from Jay before gigs. He's like, just show up, man. And I'm like, yeah, cool. All right, fine, I'll show up.
• 54:50
  Speaker B: What kind of music is Narcissi?
• 54:52
  Speaker C: It's rock.
• 54:53
  Speaker B: Just rock.
• 54:54
  Speaker D: Rock.
• 54:54
  Speaker C: Yeah, rock.
• 54:55
  Speaker A: Kind of psychedelic trash guitar rock.
• 54:58
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 54:58
  Speaker C: Jay's a great guitar player.
• 55:01
  Speaker A: Has cool, funny songs. Songs like I Hate the South.
• 55:06
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 55:06
  Speaker A: It's one of his big hits.
• 55:07
  Speaker C: That's the. That's the other funny thing about Narcissi. I never listen. I couldn't understand the lyrics when we're practicing because we practice at ungodly levels of volume. So the. And once that we recorded the record, I like to listen to it. I'm like. And I'm laughing. I'm like, jay, those are great lyrics, dude. That's so funny. I'd never even. I could never even heard them before. Like, every time we play, it's so loud, all I can hear is just kind of.
• 55:34
  Speaker A: Sure, sure, sure. Now, speaking of Jay Holland, you and I did one of these Jay Holland birthday lock in sessions.
• 55:45
  Speaker C: Yes. Out at Studio in the Country.
• 55:46
  Speaker A: Right, Right. Where we showed up on Friday, stayed Friday night, all through Saturday. And we would go into the studio, and he'd have you, me, and Sage
• 55:59
  Speaker C: Moss, maybe Davey Easley was there. Am I right about that?
• 56:03
  Speaker A: Could have been. You might have been there. And then. And then Jay wouldn't even play guitar. He would just walk around, he'd come in and say, he's, like, producing.
• 56:10
  Speaker C: He's just Mr. Producing.
• 56:12
  Speaker A: Like, well, not even producing in terms of record producing. He would, like, give you the parameters for an improvised scene. Like, not improvised music scene, but like a stage scene. He would give you some direction, say, okay, and. And then.
• 56:28
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 56:29
  Speaker A: Wrap it up at the end and kind of do something. What is this? I don't. I don't even know what you're trying to prompt me to do.
• 56:35
  Speaker C: He's got the most. He's got a very unique way and ingenious way of doing things, I guess. I mean, it usually comes out pretty good.
• 56:43
  Speaker A: And. And the stuff that. That he. That he gleaned from that. That session sounds great.
• 56:48
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He usually has it right on. He's in one of the teams. We did on that second Narcissi record. He learned. He. He sang a lyric, and then he played it backwards, and he learned how to sing it backwards, and then he sang it backwards, and then he turned the tape around.
• 57:10
  Speaker A: Then he turned the tape around so it sounds like. It sounds like David Lent. It sounds like Blue Velvet. And when you're.
• 57:16
  Speaker C: I mean.
• 57:16
  Speaker A: I mean, Twin Peaks, when you're. When you're in the. The Red Lodge.
• 57:20
  Speaker C: And he sang and he was like. And then when he turned it around, he's like, please come by, or whatever. The lyrics, it was awesome.
• 57:31
  Speaker A: Oh, man. He's a mad genius. So. So you're playing with Narcissi, but. But that's not the only band you've played with. You. You play in all kind of bands. The Bonaparts.
• 57:42
  Speaker C: The Bonaparts are me and my friend Katie. And Katie's also friends with Jay Holland. And we've been writing. We started writing songs because we booked a trip to Europe in the late 90s. Like, we got some tickets to Amsterdam, like, round trip for 400 bucks. And we were working at the Pizza Kitchen uptown, both of us and another waitress that worked there, and we were all like, we're going fucking. We're going to Europe, we gotta go. We're young. Whatever. Let's go do it. So we took off and we. When we were saving money to do that, and instead of going out, we would go back to her house or my house, and we would write songs. We'd get like, a. Some, like, Miller cheap Miller Ponies, and we would write songs and we start. And then I don't know who it was, but we told somebody about it, and they're like, oh, come and play with us. And we're like, yeah, sure, whatever. We'll come out and play. And we never ever asked for a gig. We never, never looked for a gig, but for some reason, people kept asking for. So we dressed. I dressed as Napoleon, she dressed as Josephine, and we did. We wrote these goofy country songs and we played. We did it up. We played the whole thing, and it was awesome. And we just. People. Once we started it, it was kind of sort of steamrolled and people. We got weird offers. Like, our best gig ever was at a wedding. They hired us to come and stand at the. The shot luge. You know how they have, like, an ice fountain and we pour a shot of liquor down it and whatever they've been. And they paid us to sit at the ice luge at the ice shot thing and insult everybody that came up and did the thing. And it was one of the best nights of my life. It was awesome.
• 59:21
  Speaker A: Like, I just had to drink it.
• 59:23
  Speaker C: I just make. To make fun of everybody that walks up and get. And tries to. They're like, yeah, do it. Nope. And they're like, no parameters. There's a really nice wedding. Like, it's very. They're like. You say whatever you want. Don't worry about it. And we're like, ah, okay.
• 59:35
  Speaker B: So what'd you say?
• 59:36
  Speaker C: All kinds of stuff. We did whatever we wanted. Exactly. We said whatever we wanted.
• 59:40
  Speaker B: For any of it?
• 59:41
  Speaker C: God, no. I was drinking. The. I was drinking.
• 59:43
  Speaker B: You were drinking out of the fountain, of course.
• 59:44
  Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
• 59:45
  Speaker B: A pig's trough.
• 59:47
  Speaker C: It was. That's a good way to describe it. It was like bridesmaids and me and every other kind of conundrum that was there.
• 59:56
  Speaker A: Right.
• 59:56
  Speaker C: Sucking booze off of this ice tit.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker A: Now, at some point, you.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker B: You.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker A: You hightail it to the North Shore.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker C: I do. That was right after Katrina, actually. We were looking at a house that was right by the 17th Street Canal, as a matter of fact. Really contemporary. It's a beautiful place. Super contemporary. In the lakefront. Like, gorgeous. We're like, ah, we want it. We want it. And then. Yeah. Oh, man.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker B: Man.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker A: Well, you. You lucked out by not having purchased that.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker C: Yes, yes. And I'm serious. We were like a week away.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker C: Like, we made an offer. They're like, yeah, blah, blah, whatever. It was working. Like the, the wheels were going and then kaboom. And then I went to. I was, I went to a buddy's house. And after that, all that came again. After we got back from all that, after the post K, I went to a crawfish boil in a beat at a friend's house and he had just a little, like a, like a Xerox, like a little runoff of a, of a sign that said house for sale, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, dalton is. His name is Dalton. I was like, dalton, whose house is this? It's my in laws house, man. It's a block away. I was like, I want it. He's like, it's already under contract. I'm sorry. And I was like, like, damn, man. I was like, all right, I bet if something happens, I'll let you know. And about a month later, he called me and said, that deal fell through. If you want that house, come look at it.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker C: And we went and took it. When we bought it, it was, it was a good deal. I mean, we got so much more for our money. Yeah. Be the Springs. It's like Mayberry. My. I had young kids.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker B: Like, my brother in law had a, A very successful cafe there for. For a while. Beta Springs Cafe.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker B: He. And he.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker C: Is he now in Gentili?
• 1:01:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, he was.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker C: He was. Okay.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker B: Stephen.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker C: Yeah, I know Stephen. I know Stephen.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker B: One of the. Yeah. Most annoying people I've ever met in my life.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker B: It's my brother in law.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker B: Herbert. Stephen Herbert.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker C: I didn't know his last name. I knew he was the guy that had the cafe. Yeah.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker B: He talked your ear off, huh?
• 1:02:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker B: He talks everyone's.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker C: Yeah, that was the one bad thing about, like, I wish you would have spent half as much time in the kitchen.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker C: Other than out. Out in the thing talking to people, you know.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker B: Well, that's funny.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker A: Well, now, so. So once you get up there on the North Shore, it's a, It's a smaller group, but it's, you know, everybody and they have a bunch of musicians that, that live up there. You fall into this, this cliff with the great Carlo Deda.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker C: I did. Luckily, I've met that dude. And it was a. I was interviewing for a job, which I got. I was working for James Michalopoulos. He had a restaurant in Covington called Etois for a little while and it was beautiful. It's like walking into one of his paintings, he had it all crooked. He was like. It was the, it was the most. It was the best looking room on the Gulf Coast. Like, it was gorgeous. It was a gorgeous restaurant. And I'm in, I'm in actually in interview with James. Like, we're sitting at the table. He's got his chefs bringing stuff out to us. And Carlo walks up and James goes, oh, Carlo, this is Anthony, he's an Italian drummer. And Carlo goes, oh, I've been looking for a good day. Go drummer, bro. Give me your number. And that's how it all started.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker A: So he throws words like that around. Yeah, without. Without thinking.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker C: Yeah, he does. He does throw lots of words around. Out making. As a matter of fact. Yeah, he. I think he. We coined the phrase zago because we have Ricky come and play accordion with us. So we play. We're playing Zo.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker A: I hadn't heard that before. That sounds like Carlo. Yeah, you know, I know Carlo from the West Bank. I remember when my father playing Timberlane Country Club when they were the, the. The Dita family were members there and his dad, Jay Ditta was a big shot.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker A: Show up and would. I remember his dad sitting in with my father's band singing the Way We Were. No, my Way.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker C: Nice.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker A: Where he changes the words to I Did It My Way.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker C: I've heard Carlo describe his dad as the Tony Soprano of Gretna. He really many times.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker A: He was that big kind of dude, like that big personality, friendly guy. But you would, but scary too. Like you wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of it, man.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker A: But, but yeah, did a concrete, you know. And so, so then, then I, I actually worked with Carlos, starting on the Guitar Slim junior Record, which wound up being a Grammy nominated record. And then I, I play. He used me on the, the Willie deville Victory Mixture record.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker C: That's his gold record.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was. That was a terrific record. Had, you know, everybody from Dr. John, Alan Toussaint, Eddie Bowe, another guy that lived up there on the North Shore. Billy Gregory played.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker C: Oh, I love Billy Gregory. I got to play with Billy many times with Carlo. And that man was incredibly interesting. Has never. He could, he could talk. Like we would pick him up, man, in Lacombe. Like he lived in Lacombe, had a house in the com. We pick him up in Lacombe to go to a gig at Three Muses. Or somewhere on Frenchman.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker A: He would talk the entire time.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker C: The entire time. Like, we get about halfway across the causeway, Carl would be looking back at
• 1:05:20
  Speaker A: me like, is he gonna stop?
• 1:05:24
  Speaker C: What's gonna happen here? And he just. He could not. And.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker B: But.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker C: And player. My God, Billy was such a. Like, he was just outstanding.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker C: I loved the. Yeah. Everything he did, and he loved playing with me. He was like, man, I love playing with you.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker A: And I was like, it's easy, cuz it's. It feels good. You don't. You don't make it hard when it doesn't need to be hard.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker A: And. And because of that quality, I think that's why you play in so many bands. Because, like, well, let's get Anthony. He's not going to torture us. It's not going to be a struggle. And. And so through. Through Carlo, he, you know, he had this associate. Carlo Ditta had this association with John Sinclair.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker C: Yes. And John. And I got to play with John many times, and the.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker A: The only time I got to play with John was right before the Pandemic hit. And. And you and I were on the.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker B: I.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker A: You. You and I played together there.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. North Shore. St. John's Coffee House, I think it was. Yes, it's kind of a. Kind of a cool room. It was awesome. I remember that show. I think my band might have opened up. I think the low amps may have opened.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker A: Low amps? Did. It did open up. Yes. But that was a thrill for me to. To get to actually play a gig with John Sinclair.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker C: Isn't it not. Isn't it cool?
• 1:06:34
  Speaker A: And. And, you know, we. We were trying to do a podcast with him right as the Pandemic was starting, and because. Because Carlo had it all lined up, and then it's like, no, everything got shut down.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker C: So, you know, while I was playing for him, Robert and I interviewed him for Abida Springs Radio.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker A: Okay, so. Yes, you and Robert Snow, Sidney Snow's son.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker C: Yes. Another bass player extraordinaire.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker A: Great bass player.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker C: We did a little podcast thing called Beta Springs Radio. And when I was playing with John, we had it going on, and I was like, hey, John, you think we could interview? He's like, yeah, just come by Carlos and do it. And we. I remember setting up and John kind of rolling his eyes because we did it very minimalistically with a phone. And he, of course, was kind of professional at it because he's got a whole network set up. So it. The. The interview started really kind of weird. Like, Carlo was talking a Lot. And the phone fell and all this stuff happened. And then we got. Everything started straight, and I kind of pulled it back into, like, talking to John. And he and Robert started talking and they started talking about the MC5 and how people wouldn't want. He. Like, people. They wouldn't want to open. They didn't want mc5 opening for him anymore. And because they were blowing people off the stage.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker A: Follow them.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker C: Yeah. And then John.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker A: John. For those who don't know, John Sinclair was the manager for the MC5.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker C: Yes, yes. Amazing band of Detroit from the 60s.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker B: And.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker A: And then, you know, he managed the Stooges, Iggy and the Stooges, which was kind of a junior band to the MC5.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker C: And that. A story he told me was on that interview was that Blood, Sweat and Tears, the guys from Blood, Sweat and Tears called him and said, hey, we're coming through Detroit. We need an opener. Not y'.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker B: All.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker C: We don't want MC5. We want somebody else. You got friends, you know, anybody. And John's like, yeah, I know a band called the Stooges. They'd love to open up for you.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker D: They had no idea.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker C: And you just sent them another one that was.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker A: No. No picnic to follow. Just exactly. You made me.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker D: So.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker C: So I bet they didn't. I don't know if they called him anymore.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, we don't need any more suggestions.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker C: So.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker A: Man, it's a. It's a. It's a rich scene over there. It's crazy.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker C: And surprisingly, surprisingly rich. When I moved over there, like, I mean, I've been in the city for almost 20 years, and, like, I'm thinking, oh, man, this is gonna be. This is gonna be a drag, you know, kind of. But. But I'm like, My kids. I've got. It's gonna be like Mayberry. My kids would skateboard at school, you know, ride their bikes to school and stuff. And it was just, like, so cool. It was just very, very naked.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker B: They would ride naked if they wanted to. To. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker C: If they wanted to. And I put clothes on them once they got there, but.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker B: Wash the seats.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Sometimes. Sometimes.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker A: Anyway, sure.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker C: But. But. And then once I met Carlo and I started meeting other people up there, it was like, wow. Holy cow. This is like. I mean, it's as talent rich as this beautiful city is, too. Yeah, it's not per capita. I think it's just a talent per capita.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker C: And then I started meeting, like. Like, even further, like Folsom. Like, I met a trumpet player, this old British guy. At Folsom. I can't remember his name to save my life, but he's incredible.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker C: Like he just sat in. But he plays in New Orleans all the time. He's got a steady somewhere. And I was like, wow. And you live in Folsom? Like that's like.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker A: A lot of people that. That New Orleans seems too dangerous for them or something or they just. They like the country. A lot of people like to be around the woods. Not me.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker C: Yeah,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker A: but a lot of people like that kind of thing, you know, it's worth. Worth them taking a 30 minute drive.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker C: Yeah. But I don't know that I like the. I like Abita because it's like kind of still a city. Kind of still. Like I live in a Brooklyn without the people.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker C: I can walk to my doctor, my dentist, a store, several restaurants. You know, there's just several amenities. I'm in downtown, like right in.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker A: Okay, downtown.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker C: And I'm telling you, downtown, small town is the way to go.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, I could see that. Like you said Mayberry.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's Mayberry. It's got pretty much the amenities of a large city with maybe not so much of the selection.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker B: You're known as the goober.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker C: The goober.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker C: I don't. Maybe. I don't. Hope not. But maybe.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker B: Or you're Floyd the Barber.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker C: I'm not Otis. I used to be Otis.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker B: Used to be Otis.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker C: I maybe used to be Otis, but I'm not Otis anymore. I'm like the stoner Otis.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker C: Is what I am in Abita Springs. I'm like the guy that's good. Yeah, yeah. I'm the stoner Otis. I don't drink anymore too much. But except tonight.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker A: Just one. One to get you started. One or two to get you started. Well, we're kind of on the downslip of the podcast. But you know, one, one thing that you know again, you know, Alex Chilton is one of those people that will show up in your life and then keep coming up in your life. And in many ways you actually backed up Alex Chilton on his final set in life.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker A: Which my wife was there at the big top and saw that set and I was, I was out of town or something. She said, oh, I saw Alex play today.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker C: Jay Holland kind of started that whole thing. There was a. I think a earthquake in Haiti or something like that. And he's like, hey, man, we should do something for them people in Haiti. And I was like, what do you want to do? He's like, I don't know. Some Kind of show or something. And I was like, I'll see who I know. I'll call. Maybe I'll call Alex and see what if he'll do it. And so I did. He was the first person I called. I say, hey, Alex, we want to do a benefit for Haiti. He's like, yeah, man, I'm in. I was like, what songs you want to do? He's like, I don't know. We'll wing it. Don't worry about it.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker C: And I was like, all right, cool. And I'm down with that. I'm completely down with that. Yeah, no problem, bro. So he comes in, and then he, like, he gets there, and he's like, who's the bass player? And I'm like, it's my buddy Trey. And he's like, can he read? I was like, what do you mean?
• 1:12:41
  Speaker A: Can you read?
• 1:12:41
  Speaker C: Yeah, he can read. He's illiterate. What do you mean? He's okay. Read music. He's like. I was like, I don't know. I never asked him. So he was. He was kind of adamant about his bass player reading. Be able to read what?
• 1:12:51
  Speaker A: Like, Alex had charts?
• 1:12:53
  Speaker C: I guess so. I guess so. But we were doing, like, Ernie Kato tunes. And I'm like, dude, you don't need to chart that, bro. We know it. It's like, I. I'd played that song. I played all those songs, like, 100 times.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker A: Never seen Alex pass out charts before.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker C: Whatever.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker D: Sure.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. So, dude, like, this is like, Alex is. And we're playing, and he turns around to me. He's like, hey, man, try hitting the snare on the 2 and the bass on the 4. And I was like, you want me to count, man? He wanted me to play a shuffle, and I was like. And because he asked me that, and I was like, you, bro? And I just completely torched the next song. Like, we played that song. He wanted to shuffle. I said, oh, you want to shuffle? And he was like, I was torturing him. Like, I was just around torturing him. He's like, look. Looking back at me, like. And then the next tune, he's like, all right, let's do boom. And I pop into that exact shuffle that he wants. And he's like. He just turns around, looks at me, and gives me this shitty. And grin, like, okay, you got me.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker D: All right.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker A: Well, that's. That's right up his alley as far as the sense of humor. Yeah. And because he liked to do that to people, too. Yeah. Yeah. I could see why you guys got along yeah, but sadly, Alex played that show and, what, like, two or three days later, passed away.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker C: Passed away. He was cutting his grass.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. Crazy. Crazy.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker C: It is.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker A: You know, I've. I've heard that gig referred to over the years by a bunch of different people, you know, did they like the world at large? Well, not. Not people that weren't there, but just people referring to that gig.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker A: So that performance looms in.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker D: In.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker C: In it. Does it? I think that Keith Spira wrote about it in his book Groove Interrupted. I think I got a phone call from a friend one day and was like, hey, man, you're in a book. And I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, I'm reading Keith Spir's book. There's, like, a chapter about you and Alex Chilton. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember that. He interviewed me about that after his death, and I told him about that show, and that's the way he kind of wrote about that show.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker A: Same chapter. So you have things coming up in the future?
• 1:15:01
  Speaker C: I do. I've been painting. My grandmother was an artist. I grew up around artists. I grew up in art studios. I got thrown out of my first. Only art classes I've ever taken. F5. I got thrown out at 5.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker A: Okay, like the one drum lesson you took?
• 1:15:18
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, because I got thrown out of five because the guy who is actually now a very successful artist, he let me drink coffee. So I'm like five years old, and I drink, like, four cups of coffee.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker B: All the sugar, sausages.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker C: Oh, we'll get to that.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker B: We'll get to that. Couple minutes.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker C: Oh, I am a.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker C: That's what I do now. I'm a sausage maker.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker B: Yeah. What's the name of your company?
• 1:15:41
  Speaker C: T Rays Sauce, Buddha and Cracklin.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker B: Where can we.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker C: It's on Mandeville. You can find us on Facebook.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker B: Facebook. Or anything like that.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker C: No, no, we gotta. We've got a. A place. We got a.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker B: We gotta come to you.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker C: Yes. You play lunches every day, like, at Roses or. No, Not Rouses.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker A: That's a whole different ball game or boutique operation.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker C: It is. It is. It's all our own. It's our own stuff. We're like, the best Stop. Or somebody like that. Or like, we do our. We do Buddha, we do head cheese. We do, you know, all the Cajun sausages on Dewey. Hot sausage, smoked sausage.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker A: It's all pork, though.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker C: All pork? Yeah, all pork sausage. We make Italian Picarlo. You know, he comes and gets some Italian sausage.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker B: I don't like the hog heads. Yeah, it's like.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker C: No, it's okay. It's a. It's a. It's. It's a. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker A: It's like a pork jello. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker B: Disgusting.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker C: It's a acquired taste.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Not for.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker C: And luckily, they're the. A lot of people have acquired the taste. Our hog.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker B: What's the name of the company again?
• 1:16:45
  Speaker C: T Rays, Budin and Cracklins. It's in. It's on Highway 59 in Mandeville. You can get all your Cajun charcuterie needs.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker B: Well, I'll promise you one thing. I'm never going to go.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker C: But you don't go to the north, shorty.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker B: No, I don't.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker C: You're afraid of that place.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker B: Like, it's.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker A: He barely comes here.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker D: Well.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker A: So you have an art show coming up, though, just to plug that?
• 1:17:09
  Speaker D: I do.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker C: On the way here, I was like, I don't have a show to push. So I stopped in at the Pizza Kitchen at Carrollton, at the Riverbend there. My friend Rob, who owns the place, I used to work there for years.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker C: And I'm like, hey, man, I'm going to do a podcast, and I don't have a show to push, and I want to put some art up in your restaurant. And he said, I would love that, Anthony. I got one more artist after this. How about Labor Day? So Labor Day, somewhere around Labor Day, L.A. pizza Kitchen at the Carrollton Circle there at Carrollton, where the river bend. The Riverbend. That's it. Thank you. The Riverbend. The Riverbend. The Pizza Kitchen at the Riverbend. I will have an art show up somewhere around Labor Day.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker B: Lpk.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker C: Lpk, baby.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker B: That's it. Well, that sounds fabulous.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun. It's fun being me. It really is.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker A: That's great.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker B: It's.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker A: It's. It's fun for us to watch you being here. We're all enjoying it.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker C: Great.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker B: I hope we're happy to hear you. And we're not, though.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. You should be.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker A: We're all being ourselves.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker A: As it should be. Well, Anthony, what a fun time, man. Thanks so much for. I'm glad we were finally made.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker A: Able to make this happen. You've been in the book for so long. Cannot tell you. As always on the Troublemen podcast, we like to say, trouble never ends.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker B: But the struggle, Anthony, always continues. Good night.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker C: Yes, it does.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker A: Good night.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker D: Super fun. The Global Watchdogs finally won one. They're gonna dig up a great big hole Nowhere to go. Super fun we got a real life super fun home we're gonna dig up a great big hole Gonna roll it all, you know Gonna cover it up with a great big tar but why the bunny's go. The great wood hair there.