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TMP312 BRUCE SUNPIE BARNES: CREOLE ALL-AMERICAN · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker A: Greetings, troubled listeners. Welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I am Renee Coleman, sitting once again in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge in the heart of the club Ireland, with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times and future mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome, Manny.
• 0:33
  Speaker B: Hey, how are you?
• 0:35
  Speaker A: I'm good, I'm good. It's good to be back.
• 0:37
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, where were you?
• 0:39
  Speaker A: Well, I was in Hawaii. Oh, in Hawaii. I was, I was first there with the, the Big Island Jazz and Blues Festival.
• 0:46
  Speaker B: I saw some of that. You posted footage.
• 0:49
  Speaker A: I did with our guest here. He was along for the way the.
• 0:52
  Speaker B: Crowd look, it should have been the Big Island Gerard Tall Festival.
• 0:55
  Speaker A: It's an icy hot crow, but you.
• 0:58
  Speaker B: Know, old white people, man.
• 1:01
  Speaker C: No, they had the middle school hula hoop contest going on in the middle of the week.
• 1:05
  Speaker B: So that was for the pedophiles. Is that what that was for?
• 1:10
  Speaker A: I don't know. Something for everybody? Yeah, but yeah, we were over there, had a terrific lineup. They got me on stage. You know, I usually try to not be up there the whole time, you know, to kind of.
• 1:25
  Speaker B: So is this like a three day event or.
• 1:27
  Speaker A: Well, it's. Yeah, it's a three day event, more or less. They have like. But. But there's one main day which is like the big show where they. Everybody plays a full set, you know, and this time we had all our friends there and everybody wanted the iguanas to back them up. So I got on stage and was. Was there for three hours and 15 minutes without, without leaving as all these.
• 1:52
  Speaker B: It's like a Bruce Springsteen concert.
• 1:53
  Speaker A: All these different artists came up and did their sets and we backed them all up and it was, it was.
• 2:01
  Speaker B: Now this is sponsored by Geritol.
• 2:04
  Speaker A: No, it has a. It has a lot of, A lot of sponsors. I don't think either of those are named sponsors, but you know, who knows what goes on behind the scenes? But yeah, there's a lot of, A lot of corporate sponsorship. The, The Mauna Kea beach resort is a big sponsor where they put the thing on. That's where we all stayed and extended the trip a little bit longer this time and. And actually went to the wet side of the Big island, which I'd never been to. There's a dry side. There's a dry side and a wet side.
• 2:35
  Speaker B: But isn't it all surrounded by water?
• 2:36
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, but.
• 2:37
  Speaker B: So it's all wet.
• 2:38
  Speaker A: Well, if you go into the ocean, the ocean is wet everywhere. Yeah, but. But like on the dry side.
• 2:44
  Speaker B: Feel Claustrophobic on an island.
• 2:46
  Speaker A: It's a pretty big island, you know.
• 2:48
  Speaker B: Because you're just surrounded. It's like being on one of those cruise ships. You just can't get off.
• 2:52
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, maybe it can't get.
• 2:54
  Speaker B: Off the island if you, you want, you know, I got to get off this side.
• 2:56
  Speaker A: No, you couldn't swim off.
• 2:58
  Speaker C: I've been on the aisle of denial.
• 2:59
  Speaker B: For quite a long time. Yeah, but no man is an island.
• 3:03
  Speaker A: No man is an island.
• 3:04
  Speaker B: I don't know what that means. I've heard that for millions of years.
• 3:08
  Speaker A: I still don't know what that means. We're all connected. We all have to rely on each other at some point. You know, we can't. Can't be isol.
• 3:14
  Speaker B: No, I don't think so.
• 3:15
  Speaker A: Okay, well, that's what that phrase means.
• 3:16
  Speaker B: Really? Does it?
• 3:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:18
  Speaker B: Cuz I wake up every day and like clockwork, someone always ruins my day.
• 3:25
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 3:26
  Speaker B: So I don't think that's a connection.
• 3:29
  Speaker A: Well, you know, it's. Maybe you can't get away with being solitary, but that's no, no, no guarantee that everyone you meet is going to be helpful. You have to learn to pick and choose. But anyway, got to go to the wet side of the island and stay in Volcano Hawaii, which is like the closest town to volcano, and they have Mount Kilauea there.
• 3:56
  Speaker B: And what is the fun of that? Well, did it go off the volcano?
• 4:01
  Speaker A: It did, yes. While I was still there.
• 4:03
  Speaker B: While you were jacking off. Head shot. It slowed too.
• 4:06
  Speaker A: Sure, yeah, yeah. You know, the more the merrier. No, it actually interrupted me. I was in my Airbnb when I saw it going off. It was like maybe 9:30 or something like that. And our guest was there and close by and he had been there all day at the park and it was just smoke and we kept waiting for something to happen. And then finally during. At night, this thing started erupting 1200ft into the air.
• 4:32
  Speaker B: It's crazy.
• 4:33
  Speaker A: Like as tall as.
• 4:34
  Speaker B: How come I didn't see any pictures of that? Oh, well, you had only one free hand, right?
• 4:39
  Speaker A: I did put some pictures of that. You must not have looked at all my pictures. I, I did.
• 4:43
  Speaker B: I don't look at many.
• 4:44
  Speaker A: Well, there you go. So I, I did. Because you didn't look, that's why. But anyway, it's, it's. That was a tremendous experience. Even people that, that live in Hawaii, I spoke to them afterwards. They said, well, we've seen eruptions, but it's usually where the lava is just Rolling out and running across the ground. It's very. It's a special event.
• 5:04
  Speaker B: They were talking about the volcano or your eruption.
• 5:07
  Speaker A: Well, the volcano in this case, but it's a special event to have a fountain eruption like that, as they call it, you know, going. So we were seven miles away, but the thing was so huge. Looked like it was right there. Anyway, so did you miss me?
• 5:26
  Speaker B: No. It was probably some of the best time off I've had in a while.
• 5:29
  Speaker A: Okay, nice, nice. What'd you do? You.
• 5:32
  Speaker B: But I got to tell you, I went. You know that. What was that guest we had on a while back who. Who was going to pair music with food? What was that guy's name?
• 5:42
  Speaker A: Oh, Tony Tocco. Tony has cafe at chapel. I rather chaff.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: I went there for brunch because he suggested I go there for brunch.
• 5:53
  Speaker A: Have a terrific brunch. Yeah.
• 5:54
  Speaker B: And I thought it was way too rich, the food. But anyway, you know, he was talking about pairing music with food and all that. So when I made the reservation, I said, well, I don't really care for music with food. So I told them, I want to be seated as far away from the band as possible, okay? Which they accommodated me, all right. But what I found interesting was, you know, they had this, like, jazz trio playing. You could hear them faintly in the background and stuff like that. And I'm thinking to myself, talking to my wife, I'm saying, well, this is about pairing music with food. He's got jazz for this, and I guess it goes with this dish. I don't know. But then the band took a break, and through the speakers, you know, I thought his whole thing was about pairing New Orleans music with food and stuff like that. Through the speakers, they were blasting Aerosmith.
• 6:46
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 6:47
  Speaker B: It's just like, well, this doesn't go with this, right? You know, I'm not eating a Boston bean pie or anything like that. You know, Boston baked bean pie. I didn't understand it at all. But the waiter was very nice. I liked him a lot. He was a good guy. But I didn't understand the whole thing about this music with food thing.
• 7:06
  Speaker A: Okay?
• 7:08
  Speaker B: There was no, like, a tutorial on it. You know, you would think the way to tell you something about it, this dish will go good with this song, you know, or whatever like that.
• 7:17
  Speaker A: Are they pushing that during the brunch? I thought that was kind of a. That's a television show. They're. They're developing.
• 7:23
  Speaker B: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:24
  Speaker A: I don't know that. That's something they always try to do. I mean, they have music while you're eating.
• 7:28
  Speaker B: The best part of the meal was that we dined in ditch.
• 7:31
  Speaker A: Okay, well, shout out to Tony Toka.
• 7:34
  Speaker B: Tony Toke.
• 7:35
  Speaker A: That was. That was really lovely of him to treat us to those. I have yet to. To go have. Have a meal there, but have it on my. He treated soup.
• 7:45
  Speaker B: I don't get treated. What are you talking about?
• 7:47
  Speaker A: Oh, well, I thought you did. No, but.
• 7:50
  Speaker B: But anyway, that may be the case. Yeah, so that was something that happened and, you know, I. I don't think I'll go there again, but we'll see.
• 7:58
  Speaker A: Okay, we'll see. It's a terrific restaurant. Anyway. Has this ever happened to you before? We're all flying to Hawaii, connecting through Denver. There's maybe like eight or nine people who are going to be at the festival coming from. From New Orleans airport. And it's early. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Wayne Toups, Lynn Drury, Charlie Halloran, Bruce Unpai Barnes, other people who I'm. I'm forgetting right now. But anyway, so the plane was there. They give you text updates if you sign up, say, well, your plane is here. Everything's on time. We get there to the airport, and they say, well, the flight is delayed by three hours, almost four hours. Go. Why is the plane delayed? Turns out the pilot stayed at a hotel where he said the fire alarm went off four times during the night. And so he woke up and said, I didn't get any sleep. I'm invoking my fatigue exception.
• 9:06
  Speaker B: Well, that's probably a good idea.
• 9:08
  Speaker C: AKA Rick's.
• 9:11
  Speaker A: Rick's Cabaret.
• 9:12
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 9:13
  Speaker A: Well, in the moment, I was thinking, you know, as a pilot of a plane, don't you only have to work about two minutes of takeoff and about two minutes at landing? The rest of the time, the plane mostly flies itself.
• 9:26
  Speaker B: I have no idea.
• 9:26
  Speaker A: It seems like that. Autopilot, they call it. But I was thinking, this guy doesn't know the primary motivating axiom of showbiz, certainly, which is the show must go on. I was thinking, My mother's 85 years old. If she had gotten no sleep, I guarantee you she'd be in that fucking cockpit if she had to stab herself in the leg with a screwdriver to stay awake.
• 9:49
  Speaker B: So this upset you?
• 9:51
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, because it actually caused us a whole day. We had to make other arrangements. At one point they were saying, well, the next available flight is the same one two days from now. We're like, no, that's not gonna work.
• 10:03
  Speaker B: You'll have enough sleep by then.
• 10:04
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, that's not gonna work for, for us. Yeah, but we had to.
• 10:08
  Speaker B: I'd rather have a well rested pilot. Okay, then, you know, someone who's, you know, got the shakes or whatever, you know.
• 10:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'd take my chances to get there on time, but whatever. To each his own.
• 10:20
  Speaker B: So you were late by a day.
• 10:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, we had to go through San Francisco, you know, spend the night there. There's a whole lot of rigmarole. Anyway, we, we did get there and the whole thing went off, but, but yeah, that's a first for me. The pilot's too tired.
• 10:36
  Speaker B: I, I, you know, truth hurts. Yeah, no, that seems all right. I would rather have a well rested pilot. All right. Well, you know, but speaking about that, did you hear just today, I think or yesterday there was a airline that had to, they couldn't take off. They had to get all the passengers off because of a bomb threat.
• 10:58
  Speaker A: Did see that in the news today.
• 10:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And they caught the guy who did the bomb threat. And the reason why he did the bomb threat is because he didn't make that flight.
• 11:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:08
  Speaker B: So he thought he would call and then maybe they'll let me on since they're not leaving just yet.
• 11:13
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. Just cause a slight delay.
• 11:17
  Speaker C: Well, a lot of those people ending up in countries that they can't spell.
• 11:20
  Speaker B: Right, Right. Well, I remember flying back from Vegas to la. We had gone there for a day or two, a couple buddies of mine and we didn't have enough money for the flight back. We had enough money for two tickets. And my one friend who's crazy going nuts, he tried to sneak in on the baggage. He tried to sneak into the baggage in a bag? Well, no, he just, just.
• 11:45
  Speaker C: I was gonna say you went like.
• 11:46
  Speaker B: Oh, just kind of climbed, you know, the, the, what do they call the carousel. He kind of climbed up through that.
• 11:51
  Speaker A: Really?
• 11:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, he tried to get up there and he didn't make it.
• 11:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:57
  Speaker B: It doesn't seem like we flew home without him. Yeah. But he stayed and he won eight grand.
• 12:03
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 12:04
  Speaker B: @ the, on a slot machine in the airport casino.
• 12:08
  Speaker A: Wow. It all works out.
• 12:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, it all worked out.
• 12:10
  Speaker C: I was just gonna say they had slot machines in the jail.
• 12:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they do. Yeah, they got him everywhere.
• 12:15
  Speaker C: Man one is bail mailing.
• 12:18
  Speaker B: So that guy wasn't too bright. It's just like, you know, maybe, but it's something, I think that's something when you're young. You do.
• 12:25
  Speaker A: Well, he's 23 year old kid, he he, he, he was late for his flight, called in the bomb threat, and then I guess they, they rebooked him on another flight. And then when he went to show up for. To, to make his other flight, they arrested him. He didn't see that coming. He thought, oh, this is going to be all smooth sailing.
• 12:44
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:45
  Speaker C: Cognition.
• 12:46
  Speaker A: Right, right, right, right.
• 12:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. So he, he, he's gonna, but he, it's not that big a fine. Apparently. Apparently his court, he's. His court dates like sometime in June. It was a ten thousand dollar bail which he posted.
• 12:59
  Speaker A: And they already released him.
• 13:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, they already released him.
• 13:01
  Speaker A: And now that, that brings up another thing. It's been an ongoing subject here on the podcast and just in local news in general, even national news. The. The Orleans Parish Prison escape.
• 13:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:16
  Speaker A: And when we had the last podcast two weeks ago, you were saying already they'd been out for like 10 days. They'd been on the loose, and it was just those two guys. And you were saying, well, what's the over under on this? You were saying, I think 16 days might be the.
• 13:32
  Speaker B: And it's over that.
• 13:33
  Speaker A: The over under. And now that's, that's like 14 more days. So now they must be up to 24 days or something.
• 13:40
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker A: Same two guys. And one of them I saw has started posting videos on, online.
• 13:48
  Speaker B: Yes. Where he's asking for help.
• 13:50
  Speaker A: He's saying, yeah, help me. This is a bum rap, you know, and even with that, you know, media contact, they still can't, can't, can't find.
• 14:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, I, I'm very happy for.
• 14:05
  Speaker A: Well, you were pulling for them.
• 14:06
  Speaker B: I'm pulling for both of them.
• 14:07
  Speaker A: Okay. And pulling for both of them now.
• 14:08
  Speaker B: All right.
• 14:09
  Speaker C: Hot in the summer, you know, And.
• 14:12
  Speaker B: I don't know, I, I think one of them's trying to do a GoFundMe thing. I don't know how that'll work for him, you know, so, yeah, we'll see what happens, you know, but the bigger news is that we've gotten rid of the penny. The penny is no more. They're not making the penny anymore. Which doesn't mean we'll run out of pennies.
• 14:32
  Speaker A: No, no, we got pennies come from heaven.
• 14:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 14:35
  Speaker A: Okay, there you go. Pennies from heaven. I've heard that.
• 14:37
  Speaker B: You know, but, you know, you try to give the homeless some pennies and they just look at you.
• 14:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. Like you're an.
• 14:47
  Speaker B: I gave this homeless guy a few days ago. I gave him an umbrella that I found, and he looked at me like, what the is this? And I said, you'll need this. And sure enough, it did. It started raining like an hour later, you know.
• 15:00
  Speaker A: Did he take it from you?
• 15:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, he took the.
• 15:02
  Speaker A: Okay, hopefully he was one of those.
• 15:05
  Speaker B: Like, short umbrellas that snaps, you know, it's like this big, Right. And it just snaps open. It's some good coverage there.
• 15:13
  Speaker A: Sure, yeah. Yeah.
• 15:14
  Speaker B: You know, and. But he wanted money, but I didn't.
• 15:18
  Speaker A: Right. Oh, well, you know, so anyway, choosers.
• 15:22
  Speaker B: As they say, the penny's gone and hopefully, you know, it's not too soon. Anyway, what else is going?
• 15:30
  Speaker A: Well, I was just, as I thought about this earlier when they were saying the penny, it's like, well, what are we going to do with the penny loafers? But as you said, I think we got plenty of pennies to. To last us the rest of our. Our time. Certainly our time is short.
• 15:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't have much time. Yeah, spit up, Renee.
• 15:50
  Speaker A: It's okay.
• 15:51
  Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, that's going on and then the. The riots are happening all over the.
• 15:56
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, back in your old, old neck of the woods.
• 15:59
  Speaker B: What was. It started over the weekend. I was telling my wife, you know, ICE was. They went down to Santee Alley, the garment district in la. And I told my wife, when ICE was there, I said, you know, ICE should learn that there are neighborhoods in LA you shouldn't go to.
• 16:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:18
  Speaker B: You know, and that's one of them. You should not go to that neighborhood.
• 16:22
  Speaker A: Because it's more than you're bargained for.
• 16:25
  Speaker B: Well, of course it has. Look at what's happened. 2,000 Marines there. There's 2,000 Marines, there's LA, there's all these people. Trump's called in because. And it's in every city. I mean, there's neighborhoods in New York, Chicago, you know, San Francisco, not this town, but those towns that they. There's that great scene in Casablanca where Rick is beginning the movie and he's talking to those Nazis and they say, Mr. Blay, Mr. Ick, how would. We're marching through Paris? What about marching through New York? And he goes, there'd be a few neighborhoods I'd stay away from. I don't remember the exact words, but that's basically what Bogart said. And that's the same way, you know, they've just gotten a world full of shit Now.
• 17:10
  Speaker A: Now, once you have this. And the populace is all riled up, but, you know, our fearless leader, you know, is ego driven, so he wants to win the pissing contest. And so actually, I saw an article today where they're saying, yes. This reminds me a lot of other protests I've seen, except this seems like it could get way worse.
• 17:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. People are angry, you know, and there's. They can get their message out there a lot faster. And I saw something. Are they protesters? Are they instigators? That's a huge thing. Now, I think the LA thing, other cities have seen pretty peaceful marches and stuff, but the LA thing is you're just taking people and not giving them their due process, which is basically what it is, Right. Taking them from their job and saying, get in. Never, never see your family again.
• 18:05
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:05
  Speaker B: That kind of thing. We don't know where we're taking you, but you're gone. So that's going to anger people. And I remember, you know, being in LA during the Rodney King riots. See what people don't understand right now, if you look at the map of la, LA is a huge city. The protests are in a very, very small part of la. The rest of LA is going doing their business.
• 18:25
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:26
  Speaker B: You know, I talked to my sister, she lives in. She goes, it doesn't affect me at all.
• 18:29
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:29
  Speaker B: You know, I feel for it and all that kind of stuff, but it doesn't affect me at all. Whereas, like the Rodney King riots, the injustice with that, I mean, that was all over. People went to Beverly Hills and started throwing things through glass window, you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 18:43
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:43
  Speaker B: That went everywhere.
• 18:44
  Speaker A: You couldn't ignore it.
• 18:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, couldn't ignore it. Some of the Valley. And I remember being in Echo park, me and my roommate got on the roof of our house and basically saw Koreatown going to flames. Yeah, we saw La Brea. You were there, too?
• 18:56
  Speaker C: Yeah, I was there.
• 18:57
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 18:58
  Speaker C: I went to do my first Hollywood film in.
• 19:00
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 19:02
  Speaker C: First Morning.
• 19:03
  Speaker B: Hello, Hollywood Burn. Yeah. No, yeah. So, yeah, it's different, but I. I think. See, this thing here has given everybody a voice.
• 19:15
  Speaker A: The telephone.
• 19:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, this thing here has given everybody a voice. And I don't know if that's such a great thing at times, but I guess it's okay. I don't know. You know, some people shouldn't talk, you know.
• 19:27
  Speaker C: Right.
• 19:28
  Speaker B: Who's that?
• 19:29
  Speaker A: Oh, I think people are walking in and looking at us with a sense of recognition.
• 19:33
  Speaker B: Okay. Anyway, anyhow, that's all. It's happening.
• 19:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:37
  Speaker B: Going to hell. But here they'll just have a festival we'll forget about.
• 19:40
  Speaker A: Sure, sure.
• 19:42
  Speaker B: About everything.
• 19:43
  Speaker A: You know, Eric and Eileen. All right, Shout out to him, hey, Eric. That's a part of. Part of the Troubled Wives Auxiliary, as we call them.
• 19:54
  Speaker B: That's not what I call.
• 19:55
  Speaker A: That's not what Manny calls them. Well, you know, we did have some very sad news that. That I. I was not. It's not unexpected, but still, you know, sad nonetheless is the loss of the great Sly Stone yesterday. And, you know, Sly Stone is a guy who. Now, there's a terrific documentary that Questlove did on him. I think it might be on Hulu right now or something, but, man, oh, man, it's fantastic. And you really can see in that documentary how people go like, wow, Sly went crazy. Why did he go crazy here? You know, he had everything. He had achieved everything. He was at the top of the game, and really, that was it. When you've achieved so much that you're now just topping yourself and you've raised the bar so high, at some point it starts rattling you. It's like, I don't know if I can keep doing this. And if drugs are available to kind of quench that anxiety, then, you know, that's what people will often opt for. And unfortunately, Sly, you know, got into that. That bag and was never able to really, to get out. But, man, oh, man, the accomplishments, the genius of what he did, man, it's something else, man. Live forever. So, anyway, shout out to the great Sly Stone. And on more local news, but no less a great talent, is Bob Andrews. Terrific keyboard player. Played with Brimsley Schwartz. Part of the English pub rock scene. Played with all kind of people. And then. And he lived here for many years. Played with John Mooney. I did lots of gigs with him. We. We lost him over the weekend. So.
• 21:49
  Speaker C: English Bob.
• 21:50
  Speaker A: Shout out to English Bob.
• 21:53
  Speaker B: All right, all right.
• 21:54
  Speaker A: So that's. We cleared the decks. That's all I got. Should we bring the guest in here?
• 21:58
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 21:59
  Speaker A: Excellent. Well, it's a fantastic guest. We've known each other for a long time, but I gotta say, on this. This little trip we did, it was an intimate trip. We got to hang out more than ever. I. I heard. Heard some. Some stories that I was telling. And he. He jumps on and he knows all this. Like, how the. Do you know these people? I'm talking about. Anyway, we'll get to that Snake and Jake's. Okay, well, I think that's the Priest Naked Jakes. But anyway, he's a true Renaissance man. He's a singer, harmonica and accordion player. A band leader of his own band, Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots. He plays all over the world, including tours with Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Sting. He's also a nature lover. He spent over 30 years as a ranger for the National Park Service and also played pro football for the Kansas City Chiefs. I know a team that you don't care for. Manny, you're being a Raiders fan.
• 22:58
  Speaker B: Chiefs.
• 22:59
  Speaker A: Anyway, we're going to get into. Get into all that and more. Without further ado, the great Mr. Bruce Sunpai Barnes. Welcome, Sunpai.
• 23:07
  Speaker C: Oh, thank you. Good evening, everybody.
• 23:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Well, you're saying it's been a while. That's my foot you're tapping right there. You know that.
• 23:17
  Speaker B: You guys spent some close time together, didn't you? You guys had close time?
• 23:22
  Speaker A: We had some intimate time in Hawaii.
• 23:24
  Speaker B: Foot and everything.
• 23:26
  Speaker A: So you're saying it's been a while since you were in Snake and Jake's?
• 23:29
  Speaker C: It has. The lights are just as red as ever, so I'm right at home. Acting pretty nice in here, actually.
• 23:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, not too much changes here. It's. It goes the changes. Is. Is.
• 23:39
  Speaker B: Is still stinks as always, so that never changes.
• 23:42
  Speaker C: Yeah, it smells like New Orleans.
• 23:44
  Speaker A: Smells like New Orleans. There you go. Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:47
  Speaker A: I always describe as like New Orleans is like if you go to the coolest party you've ever been to and you go up to the prettiest girl in the room, you smell her armpit after she's been dancing for an hour. That's what New Orleans smells like. I don't know. Well, so, so, Sunpie. So you, you. You've had a terrific career here in New Orleans, but wow, it's a lot of thunder out there, huh? I don't think that.
• 24:15
  Speaker B: Are you from New Orleans?
• 24:17
  Speaker C: No, I'm not. I'm from a little small country town called Benton, Arkansas. Gravel Hill community. I moved to New Orleans. You know, Arkansas is called the land of opportunity.
• 24:29
  Speaker B: Really.
• 24:30
  Speaker C: And I had the opportunity to get out of there when I was pretty young. My family. Yeah, well, you know, I had relatives in Louisiana and we used to visit. I have an uncle that was named Sun Pie, actually from a little town called Bastrop, Louisiana.
• 24:45
  Speaker B: Now, what. What is Sun Pie? Is that just a name? Why not? Moon Pie?
• 24:49
  Speaker A: That's what I was going to say. Play on Moon Pie. Or.
• 24:53
  Speaker C: No, it wasn't a play on Moon Pie. It's like a Native American name.
• 24:56
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 24:57
  Speaker C: So, yeah, it's kind of like the translation of.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: And now that relative, he was a. A blues harmonica player, if I recall right.
• 25:05
  Speaker C: Piano pop. My dad played harmonica and his uncle played harmonica. But no, this uncle's son, he was my favorite Uncle.
• 25:13
  Speaker A: Oh, he's a piano player. But he was part Native American, right?
• 25:17
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. What they call Blackfoot in Louisiana? Le Pia Noir. Not like the Blackfoot up in Canada. These were folks if, you know North Louisiana, you know where Poverty Point and all these big Indian mounds are. That's where all my folks are from.
• 25:33
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 25:33
  Speaker C: A little place called Bayou Bony D. All right.
• 25:36
  Speaker A: So, well, tell us about life when you were young there in. What'd you say, Benton or Gravel Hill.
• 25:46
  Speaker C: Yeah. All the people that came out of the community I was in was kind of made up from really from sharecroppers that came out of the Delta, like my parents and all my relatives. I remember being, you know, just young people knocking on the back door in the middle of the night. It would be a family, you know, you had to get out of there. So.
• 26:08
  Speaker A: Well, so we'll. We'll talk about, like, sharecropping in. In those days. Like, it was the kind of thing where, you know, you belong to the country store. Like, you. You owe money, so you. You gotta. You gotta be there working to work. Work off the debt that you have. And you'll.
• 26:25
  Speaker C: You'll wouldn't.
• 26:25
  Speaker A: If they set it up so you. So you'll never get out of debt.
• 26:28
  Speaker C: Yeah. That was all my relatives. Well, you know, my dad was born in. In this little place in North Louisiana. The town is called Merus, but they were from Bayou Bonide. So all of his relatives. My father was born in 1909. His dad was born 1849. My grandfather.
• 26:47
  Speaker A: Wow, that's. That's some old parents, man. Your grandfather born.
• 26:53
  Speaker C: Wasn't some of them. It was all of them.
• 26:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:56
  Speaker C: You know, so that's what I know about.
• 26:57
  Speaker A: So you had. You. You came from a big family. You had a lot of brothers and sisters.
• 27:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, ten brothers and sisters. My mother come from a family of 13. My father, same thing. My oldest, three. My oldest sister was born in 1928.
• 27:11
  Speaker A: Holy moly.
• 27:12
  Speaker C: Now, all these 10 children, all these.
• 27:14
  Speaker B: Were you born?
• 27:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.
• 27:16
  Speaker C: 63.
• 27:17
  Speaker B: All right.
• 27:18
  Speaker A: Same age as us.
• 27:19
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:20
  Speaker B: Okay. Damn.
• 27:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, man. He's a month.
• 27:27
  Speaker C: Kato said Managa High. Yeah, but I had lots of relatives that were, you know, had Uncle Joe and. Yeah, These dudes were 108 or 9 years old. Yeah.
• 27:38
  Speaker A: So what's it like in that community? A lot of people playing music. You grow up in that milieu of people playing house parties and stuff or juke joints. Okay.
• 27:49
  Speaker C: Music. Yeah. You know, people playing music in the house, in the churches, you know, the little small sanctified church.
• 27:59
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 27:59
  Speaker C: Pentecostal churches.
• 28:02
  Speaker A: Y' all attended Pentecostal church?
• 28:04
  Speaker C: Tent revivals. Yeah, that's. That's where the Pentecostal church came from.
• 28:07
  Speaker B: Did you hear about two weeks ago, maybe you guys were not in town, but there's.
• 28:12
  Speaker C: Is.
• 28:12
  Speaker B: There was a pothole in New Orleans, I think towards the east or somewhere that it was so big the Baptist church was doing baptisms in it.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: Oh, really?
• 28:25
  Speaker B: Did you hear that?
• 28:26
  Speaker C: That's how I wrote. I did hear about it.
• 28:28
  Speaker B: Did you hear about that?
• 28:29
  Speaker C: Well, you know, we used to have the baptisms in these bayous and slews and me and my brother.
• 28:34
  Speaker B: But not in a pothole.
• 28:36
  Speaker C: Not a pothole. We used to buy you okay.
• 28:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker C: But they would send us down there to go clear out all the water moccasins.
• 28:43
  Speaker B: Oh, God.
• 28:44
  Speaker C: They didn't mind snakes, but they didn't want all the poisonous snakes in there. So, like on Friday and Saturday before the Sunday baptism, you know, our gig was.
• 28:54
  Speaker B: So how do you get rid of the moccasins?
• 28:56
  Speaker C: Well, you know, I was catching snakes and selling them when I was like, 11, 12 years old. We sold them to a guy who would send them to this venom hospital down in Florida. $20 a piece for a water moccasin.
• 29:09
  Speaker A: Like to make anti venom.
• 29:10
  Speaker C: To make anti venom. And also for heart patients.
• 29:14
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:14
  Speaker C: They use it for arthritis. They use it for heart patients.
• 29:17
  Speaker B: Snakes. And moccasins.
• 29:19
  Speaker C: Moccasins. Copperhead rattlesnakes.
• 29:21
  Speaker B: Oh, wow. And how do you catch it?
• 29:24
  Speaker A: I was gonna ask you.
• 29:25
  Speaker C: You catch them as carefully as.
• 29:29
  Speaker A: Don't grab them by the tail.
• 29:30
  Speaker B: No, you have to.
• 29:30
  Speaker C: No, don't grab the cake.
• 29:31
  Speaker B: You have to. You have to keep them alive.
• 29:33
  Speaker C: Or they have to be alive. You can't, like. You can't give them over the head. But we made snakes sticks. Little fork stick.
• 29:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:40
  Speaker C: It was a good gig, except all my friends got bitten except for me. So I decided I would shift over to another.
• 29:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, another gig.
• 29:48
  Speaker C: Yeah. One of my friends got bit, man. We out gigging for catfish. He stuck his hand up in the hole and he. And he came out with our word. He was playing water moccasin. Had him right in the. Just right. Just stuck in there and bit him five times. Just chewed him up. And then we had to take a little K bar knife, you know, and cut him up. And we try to sick the. Suck the venom out.
• 30:12
  Speaker A: Right. Of course.
• 30:14
  Speaker C: And we were like seven miles down the woods. So we gotta, like, take turns toting him on our back and we're telling him like, hey, don't panic. Don't get all nervousness, right?
• 30:23
  Speaker A: Your heart starts pumping more. It brings the. Brings the venom.
• 30:26
  Speaker C: Yeah, like that's like the thing you're not going to do at that. You know, seven miles is a good walk. You're carrying somebody on your back. But luckily.
• 30:35
  Speaker B: So you sold them to that clinic in Florida.
• 30:37
  Speaker C: Basically, yeah. He was in the hospital for two and a half months. Oh, man, his hand was bigger than his leg. A farmer came along and saw us and he gave us a ride to the hospital.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: So did he make it okay, your friend?
• 30:52
  Speaker C: Not only did he make it, he didn't learn anything. They kept. They had to lance off the skin every day. It was trying to save his arm, basically. So they kept lancing it off and shaving it off and grafting it. I mean, they grafted everything, including his two cents that he had in his head. But he kept on catching snakes. The peak of it for me was we went to a rattlesnake roundup in Oklahoma. You know, these people are catching. I thought we were pretty crazy, but no, they. Hundreds and hundreds of rattlesnakes, you know, and it was there, like, how many snakes can you catch in a certain amount of time? Oh, it's a contest and people just getting bitten. Oh, man, just. I'm talking timber rattlers and diamondback rattlesnakes, man. It's freaking.
• 31:39
  Speaker B: Now, did you ever go to those revival things where they're.
• 31:42
  Speaker A: They handle snakes? That's what I wanted to ask.
• 31:44
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker A: They had that in the Pentecostal Church.
• 31:47
  Speaker C: Well, that is a branch that came out of Pentecostal Church, I'll tell you that. The Pentecostal Church came out of place called Cotton Plant, Arkansas, which is.
• 31:56
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 31:56
  Speaker C: Where my relatives were. That's where like Rosetta Thorpe, she was like, okay. Friends with my family and stuff. They. They all came.
• 32:04
  Speaker B: That's when they do that weird. Like.
• 32:07
  Speaker C: Speaking in tongues.
• 32:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, the tongue speaking. Yeah, tongues.
• 32:10
  Speaker C: They have tent revivals the month of July. Church service all day and all night, 14 days in a row. Just amazing stuff out in the middle of cotton field. And the hardest part was today, the mosquitoes, I ain't gonna lie. Because when you're sitting outside in the field and you're on a bench and got this, the mother's board has got willow switches, you know, keep you awake.
• 32:36
  Speaker A: Can't be fidgeting.
• 32:37
  Speaker C: It's 2:30 in the morning. Oh, yeah. If you're jumping around, you better be shouting and singing and speaking in tongues. Yeah. That came from out of that kind of tradition and beautiful stuff. That's where all the best music on the planet came from.
• 32:51
  Speaker A: Right. People really feeling it.
• 32:52
  Speaker C: AL Green, all concepts. Oh, my Lord. Yeah. I mean, singing.
• 32:57
  Speaker A: Well, so. So bring us forward from, you know, you. You have all these. These very strong influences. Powerful, you know, people that really mean it. How do you get involved with playing music yourself?
• 33:10
  Speaker C: Well, you know, we had a. We had a piano in the house, and my folks would. Well, my dad would play harmonica every day. He'd come out of field or whatever, and he would. I grab his harps and, you know, that's my earliest memory, actually. It's like sitting. Sitting on his knee and he'd play a little song called Cooning the Hound where he's barking like a dog. And, you know, I. I couldn't figure out where. How. Where the barking was coming from in between the harmonica. And he would play. And I was. I was like. I just thought it was some kind of magic.
• 33:42
  Speaker A: So I was like, sure, it is.
• 33:44
  Speaker C: I'm gonna get me some. Some of that. It is magic when I get old enough. But all the people I knew that were, like, playing like, that were, like, much older than me, like in his age category. Like, my uncle played barrel house piano. We had a man down the road, W.C. collins. He played boogie woogie and that kind of style, barrel house. And the guy that played in the church, his name was Uncle Dave, he played slide guitar and, you know, that kind of stuff like that. So that's, you know, it was. It was in the church or it was in the juke joint.
• 34:14
  Speaker B: Right.
• 34:15
  Speaker C: The joint for us was like 200 yards away.
• 34:19
  Speaker A: Right, right. So. So how do you start playing music yourself?
• 34:24
  Speaker C: Well, I was sneaking my father's harmonicas and try and play them. I could never figure out how he knew I was playing his harmonicas. Maybe it was the bubble gum and Cracker Jacks, but doing that. But he didn't like us, like, playing his harmonicas because it was always something.
• 34:38
  Speaker A: Nobody likes you to share the harmonicas, foreign objects. Yeah. It's not like somebody sitting in on.
• 34:44
  Speaker C: Piano got that many kids. But I was extremely attracted to it. So I started trying to bang on the piano and. And he was giving all of my brothers and sisters piano lessons. It was a good idea, except it didn't really transfer from, like, you know, like the 44 blues, you know, like this old man used to play. And that guy moved down here, Roosevelt Sykes. He was from Pine Bluff, right down the road from us. And he was, that was the, you know, all his friends and proteges, people like that. Bill Brunsey, Sonny Boy Williams lived about 13 miles from us.
• 35:23
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 35:24
  Speaker C: But that didn't. The lessons from the. I'm just saying, like it was the lady over in the white quarters across the tracks. That's not what she was teaching. She was teaching piano lessons. But it was like Left Bridge Overture.
• 35:37
  Speaker A: Right, Right, right, right, right.
• 35:38
  Speaker C: It didn't turn into 44 blues. It just never happened. And so I was just like. I learned to play by ear initially. Later I started playing trombone in, you know, school band.
• 35:50
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 35:50
  Speaker C: And that was, you know, I wanted. I thought I was a natural born trumpet player, but they wouldn't let me play trumpet. They told me I had to play trombone.
• 35:59
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 35:59
  Speaker B: Now, does zydeco happen when you come to Louisiana or was it there in Arkansas?
• 36:03
  Speaker C: I mean, I hear it in Arkansas and then. And I know that, I mean, you know, heard that music. We came to Louisiana all the time, Right. In fact, they would bring us and drop us off at Aunt Fanny's house and Uncle Son Pie. They would only take one child, but they come to Louisiana. I mean to New Orleans where the rest of the cousins were. And they would always come back with these stories about going to Fat Domino's house. And we were like, well, what is a Fat Domino, man? I want some of that. But you know. But that many children, they would only bring one because they want to have a good time, you know.
• 36:40
  Speaker B: Right. I agree.
• 36:40
  Speaker C: It's not like you're coming with like that Carlo to.
• 36:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. What kind of car do you even bring 11 kids.
• 36:47
  Speaker C: My old man loved Buick. So he was a hard working man. He had the electric 225, the deuce and a quarter.
• 36:53
  Speaker A: Deuce and a quarter.
• 36:54
  Speaker C: Oh yeah. 40 people, man.
• 36:55
  Speaker A: You can't fit 13 people in that car.
• 36:57
  Speaker C: Yeah, but you can fit like eight or nine in it.
• 36:59
  Speaker A: You can fit eight or nine in the trunk, but I mean it was huge. You gotta stack em like cordwood.
• 37:04
  Speaker C: The back seat was like these giant sofas in here.
• 37:07
  Speaker A: Sure, sure.
• 37:08
  Speaker C: But they would like make. My mama would fry like a couple chickens, you know, and bake a cake. And we would hit the road Jack, and just roll. I mean, that man would never stop either. He was like, oh, no, can't stop in Mississippi. No, you can't stop over here. It was. All these places had a deal. Pickle jar. Right, okay.
• 37:28
  Speaker B: That was it.
• 37:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. That was serious business.
• 37:32
  Speaker A: Sure, sure.
• 37:33
  Speaker C: You know, I remember when we had riots and stuff, you know. Like when. When segregation fell in Little Rock. We're very young, but they clamped down on the rest of the. That's exactly what's going on right now. They clamped down the rest of the state like an iron clod.
• 37:50
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 37:50
  Speaker C: Like Little Rock was the only place where it was not segregated. So we all got broken up and busted. Far corners of the universe. Like, I live next door to my cousins. They had to go to school 13 miles away.
• 38:04
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 38:05
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 38:05
  Speaker C: You know, that's what they did. And then there was some riots that happened after. So every time those arrived, we'd come to Louisiana until it cooled down.
• 38:14
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 38:14
  Speaker C: And if it was something going to Louisiana, they would come up by us. Okay, so that's just how.
• 38:20
  Speaker A: Right, right. Look. Looking for.
• 38:22
  Speaker C: For, you know, I moved down here. Calm Waters, 1987.
• 38:27
  Speaker A: Well, we're skipping over a bunch of. A bunch of interesting stuff.
• 38:30
  Speaker C: Go ahead.
• 38:31
  Speaker A: So. So you. You. You're. You're playing trombone, the school band. But then you're also a. A great athlete, right?
• 38:39
  Speaker C: At this time, I was doing all right. I was like an average athlete compared to these maniacs around. You know, where I was raised up at, everybody was an athlete, so.
• 38:48
  Speaker A: Well, somehow you. You wind up going to college and. And. And being an all American.
• 38:54
  Speaker C: I did do that. Yeah. Well, I figured out the long game of what athletics was. You know, that was the part you had to, like, see where. Okay, where's the value in it? Because, I mean, I could tell you that. I mean, we just had tremendous athletes all around.
• 39:08
  Speaker B: Where'd you go to college?
• 39:09
  Speaker C: I went to Henderson State University. University. Which is kind of southwest Arkansas. It turned out a lot. It's a small school, but turned out a lot of athletes. Athletes. Tons of them. You know, they would. Yeah. I mean, this school was like 3,500 people, but.
• 39:27
  Speaker B: And you? Football or baseball? Basketball. All three.
• 39:31
  Speaker C: I was running track and playing football initially. And then I. I didn't do hockey. Couldn't even spell hockey. All I knew was, like, the best joke about hockey was, hey, man, let's get the puck out of here. You know? No, I played. I end up with a full scholarship in football and track. I was. I did good in track when I was in high school. In fact, I went to the Decatur.
• 39:55
  Speaker B: What's your 40?
• 39:56
  Speaker C: My 40 was 4. 5.
• 39:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's not bad.
• 39:59
  Speaker C: I was a little bigger than I am. Right. You know, if you 2, 240 and you running a 454045 is good. But I ran hurdles. I was a. I was a high School hurdling champion.
• 40:08
  Speaker A: Oh, no kidding?
• 40:09
  Speaker C: Yeah. 230 pound high school.
• 40:13
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 40:13
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 40:14
  Speaker A: That's much bigger than a normal.
• 40:17
  Speaker B: What Was your vertical?
• 40:20
  Speaker C: 41 inches.
• 40:21
  Speaker B: 41. That's. That's good too.
• 40:23
  Speaker C: Yeah, I was too rough for basketball.
• 40:26
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 40:26
  Speaker C: Although I play, you know, I tried it, but Baseball, football, track, that kind of stuff. But yeah, you know, I wanted to get that, that education. So what was your major?
• 40:38
  Speaker B: Besides sports, what was your major?
• 40:40
  Speaker C: I studied biology, ichthyology, marine biology, plant taxonomy.
• 40:45
  Speaker A: You always had that, that impulse towards naturalism, towards nature and.
• 40:50
  Speaker C: Yeah, you know, when I was outdoors in second grade, I had the master plan. Second, third grade I was like, okay, I'm going to work with Marlon Perkins and Jacques Cousteau. And I stuck to the plan all the way through to my senior year of college. I took a 24 month scuba diving course.
• 41:11
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 41:12
  Speaker C: Marine biology, ichthyology, freshwater plant taxonomy, dendrology, ornithology, everything paleontology.
• 41:23
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 41:25
  Speaker C: My only problem was Jacques Cousteau. 88 years old, he died. And then Marlon Perkins died right behind.
• 41:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, Perkins wasn't. That was the Mutual of Omaha.
• 41:37
  Speaker C: So I was like stuck like Chuck, you know, I was like, damn.
• 41:41
  Speaker B: And didn't Philippe die also?
• 41:43
  Speaker C: Well, Philippe Nim took over the, the Calypso and he just was not the same and.
• 41:48
  Speaker B: But he also died in an accident.
• 41:50
  Speaker C: He did. And they brought the Calypso to Texas A and M. Oh, right. So they had a station over there. So I was like, well, okay, well I'll go to A and M maybe. And other place was Oklahoma State and Still Water. They had a pretty good program. But then I noticed that all of the folks, you know, I was recruit, you know, I had like 53 scholarship offers when I was coming out of high school. So I, you know, I did pretty good. But yeah, football and track and I.
• 42:18
  Speaker B: Used to love those Cousteau specials. Oh yeah, in the 70s. Oh man, I used to love those.
• 42:25
  Speaker C: Oh man, I was.
• 42:26
  Speaker B: The way he narrated them.
• 42:27
  Speaker C: Yeah, bro, he, you know, well, you know, he came up with this modern day scuba tank.
• 42:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:32
  Speaker C: You know, I. My option was since they up and died, attrition, you know.
• 42:39
  Speaker A: Sure. It's a.
• 42:42
  Speaker C: They had a program with the National Park Service that was called cooperative education. So I was like, well, looks like I'm gonna go this direction. So I started working at the Buffalo river up in northern Arkansas in the Ozarks.
• 42:59
  Speaker A: Nice. I love that. Beautiful country, huh?
• 43:01
  Speaker C: Beautiful.
• 43:02
  Speaker B: Like Cousteau used to say, thing the puffer fish does not know that it should be eaten right now. It will be eaten right now.
• 43:10
  Speaker C: Yeah. Right.
• 43:11
  Speaker B: And then some other fish would just eat the puffer fish. Bon appetit.
• 43:14
  Speaker C: Yeah. It was the same thing with Marlon Perkins. Right. Okay, Well, I will stay safely in the jeep while Jim wrestles.
• 43:24
  Speaker B: He always had Jim.
• 43:25
  Speaker C: And I will. Yeah, I will record the.
• 43:30
  Speaker B: Jim got bit by a snake, but I'm fine.
• 43:33
  Speaker C: The anaconda got it.
• 43:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker C: Anaconda almost killed Jim. So I was like, okay. And I had the assignment to go to the exact place where, when I was working for the park Service, I was like, I'm gonna get that anaconda for this dude. Because he, you know, Jim couldn't handle that one. So in the state of Para in Brazil, in the Amazon, I got the assignment. And then, lo and behold, the federal government shut the budget down. So I lost that. We had a lot of international assignments that you could do.
• 44:02
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 44:02
  Speaker C: For like six months.
• 44:03
  Speaker B: Probably for the best, I would think, don't you think?
• 44:05
  Speaker C: Maybe. Confident that I could handle it.
• 44:09
  Speaker A: Well, Manny, I'm looking at the. The clock and my drink here, and it seems like it's about that time.
• 44:14
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, Mr. PI, we're gonna take a break.
• 44:17
  Speaker C: Yeah. Time for a pie break.
• 44:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. There we go. We'll be right back.
• 44:22
  Speaker C: The coon and the hound. See, years ago, where I come from, way back in the woods, they used to call up the hounds to go out on a coon hunt. And they'd take a single barrel shotgun, they'd break the barrel down, they would blow on the barrel, call the hounds up. And you hear the hounds get all riled up, and they get ready to go out on the hunt, you know, and them dogs would get to bark and they get out there chasing. They'd get after that coon, get in a big old fight, and the coon usually win anyhow. But them hounds are getting that fight with that coon. You hear the horn blowing and the dogs get out on that hunt. Sounds something just like this here. Wait.
• 46:08
  Speaker A: And we're back, yes, back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. I am Renee Coleman, back with our guest, Mr. Bruce Sunpai Barnes. Now, Bruce, I know that you're kind of new to the podcast and. But, you know, for all of our listeners, devoted listeners out there, they. They know that this is a listener supported operation here. And we don't have any corporate sponsors. We've had people threaten to sponsor us, but so far nobody's shallow threats. Shallow threats indeed. So we. But we do have a PayPal link and a venmo link in the. The show notes of every show, as well as the Facebook page. And our. Our devoted listeners, you know, send in support. They buy us cocktails, help defray our notebook costs. You can see we're both very analog here. Pen and ink.
• 47:02
  Speaker C: Wonderful thing.
• 47:03
  Speaker A: You know, someone was telling us actually a form. No, no, there's in fact no artificial intelligence. In fact, Bruce, sometimes no intelligence at all, artificial or otherwise. But no, no, it was actually Quentin Tarantino was. Was saying how when you. When you write with a. With a pen or a pencil in a notebook, that the pen is like an antenna to God.
• 47:25
  Speaker C: That's right.
• 47:26
  Speaker A: And I thought, oh, I like that directly. I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, you can use these links to support the podcast.
• 47:34
  Speaker B: What if you don't believe in God? So what's the pen? Just mightier than the sword?
• 47:39
  Speaker A: Sure. There you go.
• 47:40
  Speaker B: There you go.
• 47:41
  Speaker A: Anyway, also, we have a Patreon page and the link there, we have a handful of patrons that are supporting us week in, week out. Thank you. And this week we're relying on those patrons because we don't have any. Any PayPal or Venmo links and Father's Day coming up.
• 47:57
  Speaker B: So you might want to get your father a T shirt.
• 48:00
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, we do have the thank you, man. And we do have the Troubleman podcast T shirts. The link is right there in those same show notes. And also follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook, and rate, review and. And subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it. Give us five stars. Helps us a lot. Cost you nothing. Also, the Iguanas have started our residency at the Carousel Bar and the Hotel Montlion. That'll be going on for a while. The first one was a big success, and it's every Sunday from 7 to 10 there. The carousel Bar, It's a place I've been going since I'm a kid because it's the weirdest place, you know, like, it's a rotating bar. Now when you had Top of the Mart, which is, you know, top of the international trademark.
• 48:51
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 48:51
  Speaker A: You know, it's like 25 stories tall, and it would rotate, but you'd see the whole city, you know, as you would go. As you would rotate around. Now, Carousel Bar is on the first floor on Royal Street. So you're not. The view doesn't really change, but it's very weird. And that's what I liked about it right from the start. It's like, it's a weird. You know, it has. Has a circus theme to it. You know, It's. It's a little bit kinky.
• 49:17
  Speaker B: You're playing while it's rotating.
• 49:19
  Speaker A: We are playing now. We're not rotating the bar. The people at the bar are rotating. We're stationary. Playing in that room towards the nauseous, I think. Well, it's so slow, man. It takes an hour to make one revolution, so you would barely know that it's moving.
• 49:36
  Speaker C: You could change friends in that time period, but you won't really.
• 49:40
  Speaker B: It takes a nation to make a revolution, baby.
• 49:43
  Speaker A: There you go. I like it. I like it. Anyway, so. So, yes.
• 49:47
  Speaker B: I don't need to sit down and rotate like happy days.
• 49:51
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. Sit on and sit on. Rotate, rotate. That's what they used to say.
• 49:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:56
  Speaker A: Another one. They used to say, like, welcome Back Cotter. They had that up your nose with the rubber.
• 50:02
  Speaker B: Right.
• 50:02
  Speaker A: When that was a catchphrase.
• 50:05
  Speaker B: Do you know that they were going to make a. That show was so successful that somebody at NBC was going to make a show called welcome Back Hitler.
• 50:14
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 50:14
  Speaker B: But they made a pilot. But it didn't.
• 50:18
  Speaker A: Didn't play.
• 50:18
  Speaker B: Didn't play.
• 50:19
  Speaker A: Right, right. I could see that.
• 50:20
  Speaker B: I could see that, but I saw pieces of the pilot looked pretty good. And Tom Bosley played Adolf Hitler.
• 50:28
  Speaker A: Okay, well, that's an interesting casting.
• 50:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. Tom Bosley.
• 50:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:32
  Speaker B: It was him. It was down to him and Larry Linville.
• 50:35
  Speaker A: Okay. You know, man, he comes with. Comes up with all the old sitcom.
• 50:41
  Speaker C: Might be a hit nowadays. I don't know.
• 50:42
  Speaker A: Probably. Probably could be.
• 50:44
  Speaker B: You know, we lost somebody that Larry Linville was close to, and that was Loretta Sweat.
• 50:48
  Speaker A: Loretta Sweat.
• 50:49
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 50:49
  Speaker A: Larry, Huge loss.
• 50:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 50:53
  Speaker A: Hot Lips Houlahan.
• 50:54
  Speaker B: Hot Lips, who became. After her career kind of died in Hollywood. She became a jeweler.
• 51:01
  Speaker A: Really?
• 51:01
  Speaker B: She used to make her own jewelry and stuff. And somebody told me that they. They bought some work from her at some convention in LA a few years back. So she was a jeweler.
• 51:14
  Speaker A: Okay, well, you see, you never know what's going to come up on the Troubleman podcast. And maybe we may be talking about Loretta Sweat. You know, talk about Larry Landville. Who knows?
• 51:23
  Speaker C: Anyway, I mean, historical moments.
• 51:25
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 51:26
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 51:27
  Speaker A: Well, I think that's enough of that. So back to our guest, Mr. Bruce Sunpai Barnes. Now. So s. You were. You were just talking about your athletic career and then. And then also your. Your as. As you're becoming a park ranger. You know, you have. You have all these competing impulses now. Do you see them as kind of in concert? You know, you know, like they're all wor. Like your naturalism, your musical impulses. You see that as all related kind of. Huh.
• 51:59
  Speaker C: Well, speaking of analog stuff, when I.
• 52:01
  Speaker A: Was.
• 52:03
  Speaker C: In summer going into the 11th grade, in between the 10th grade and 11th grade, I sat down with a notepad on these legal pads in front of a mirror and asked myself I was. What I wanted to do in life. So I just wrote down the top 10 things that I dreamt about and that I wanted to be. And. And I wrote down the top 10 things that I didn't want to be.
• 52:33
  Speaker A: Oh, really? Okay. Pros and cons.
• 52:35
  Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
• 52:36
  Speaker B: What were some of those?
• 52:37
  Speaker C: Oh, you know, I. I didn't.
• 52:39
  Speaker A: Dope fiend.
• 52:40
  Speaker B: Incarcerated.
• 52:42
  Speaker C: Incarcerated. Dope. Didn't want to be, like, jobless. I. I had a process of thinking about. I wanted to be a musician, but I didn't want to be a starving musician. So I was like, I need to have a job.
• 52:55
  Speaker B: Like, you didn't want to be those guys in the corner with their guitar case out, you know, people throwing chains.
• 53:01
  Speaker C: Well, I just called it a starving artist is what I.
• 53:04
  Speaker B: Right.
• 53:05
  Speaker C: And I didn't even know what that was. You know, I like. I mean, I grew up in rural Arkansas.
• 53:10
  Speaker A: Everybody was starving. Nobody knew. Nobody knew it.
• 53:14
  Speaker C: When I was in 12th grade, we shared a meal with our neighbor, and the mule died and, you know, pulling the plow for a while, so I knew. I.
• 53:24
  Speaker B: Did you guys eat the mule?
• 53:27
  Speaker C: No, we didn't eat it. Spiels was older than I was.
• 53:30
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 53:30
  Speaker C: You know, it was, like, older than me by, like, it was about 40 years old.
• 53:33
  Speaker B: Do people eat mules?
• 53:34
  Speaker A: They do. They. You know, in Italy, though, my. When my wife was there in some. Some rural part, they said, well, we have horse and mule. Horse, we have to cook for a day. Mule, they have to cook for two days.
• 53:47
  Speaker C: There's a place called Boca de Mulle.
• 53:50
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 53:51
  Speaker C: In northern Italy, close to Rovigo. And it's not that bad.
• 53:55
  Speaker B: You know, I had horse in Germany. Yeah, it was all right. Yeah, it was okay.
• 54:00
  Speaker C: You know, it's not better than Nutri rat or anything like that.
• 54:04
  Speaker B: They. They served it with French fries, so that was okay.
• 54:07
  Speaker C: It's exactly what.
• 54:08
  Speaker A: They're gonna make a dope joke when you said horse, but I figured, I'll just let it go.
• 54:13
  Speaker C: That's good idea.
• 54:14
  Speaker A: It's a real term.
• 54:16
  Speaker B: That was Berlin. Sure. I had the horse in Heidelberg.
• 54:19
  Speaker A: Right.
• 54:20
  Speaker C: I love Heidelberg, man.
• 54:22
  Speaker B: And I had the mule in Dachau.
• 54:25
  Speaker A: No, no, I've been to Dachau.
• 54:28
  Speaker C: I've Been to Heidelberg also. Great beers in Heidelberg.
• 54:31
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 54:32
  Speaker B: You're deciding what you want to do. You have your list. You have your list.
• 54:36
  Speaker C: I stick. Stick to my list.
• 54:38
  Speaker A: And the list worked out. Now I think that's a good workout. That's. That's a good, you know. Now our audience is. Is not. We don't have any young people in this audience, but I. I often want to elicit.
• 54:49
  Speaker C: Young at heart. I mean.
• 54:50
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, yeah. The best thing to be. I can't remember the story.
• 54:56
  Speaker C: Just do what you can.
• 54:58
  Speaker A: But you know these things where you have some self examination, you really get in touch with what your motivations are. I mean, those are important moments in an artist's life.
• 55:12
  Speaker C: Yeah. Well, you know, I had sat down, started doing some reading. I figured out I had to save myself from a bunch of shit. It was, you know, just like, around me, right. And I was like, well, how do you do that? And so, you know, in the process, I was. I started having conversations with a lot of people that were, like, much older than me, you know, like. Like I had lots of relatives like that, so I was being observant. But also I was kind of comparison and contrast. I was doing comparative lit oral stories that I got from relatives and friends and neighbors. And then I was reading a lot of Socrates, Plato, like the world of appearances. Right. Like, what is the actual versus, like, shit that's not real. Which applies a lot to today's world.
• 56:05
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 56:05
  Speaker C: Like social media.
• 56:07
  Speaker A: That's not real.
• 56:09
  Speaker C: That's not real. It's not something that I. I'm not gonna say I couldn't have that. But it's not what I really want. So I wanted to have a value system that I could always rely on no matter what I was doing and what someone presented to me that I could say, yeah, this is a part of who I am or what I'm trying to do, or it's not. So it helped a lot. Like real soon, right now.
• 56:35
  Speaker B: Integrity.
• 56:36
  Speaker A: How to live a life with integrity.
• 56:38
  Speaker C: Yeah. And like, have your own. Like, I figured that's over for me. Yeah.
• 56:45
  Speaker B: A long time ago.
• 56:46
  Speaker C: As long as I could.
• 56:48
  Speaker A: I'm not talking about me either. I'm just talking about.
• 56:52
  Speaker C: That's just where I was at that time. So I was trying to figure out, like, where I could, like, figure that out. And I'm coming from nothing. I might end up with nothing. But I'm gonna see what it is I can do. Because I think that, like, I can. I can walk into a room and read a room. Right. And Figured out I learned how to do that in juke joints when I grew up as a kid. Walking there and getting everybody's head in the whole room. Exactly. And know what they were thinking and what they were doing and like what was good about it and maybe what's not. But it's a thought process to learn how to navigate and negotiate and survive places. So you know, I was doing this when I was 12 years old, cuz, you know.
• 57:34
  Speaker B: Right.
• 57:35
  Speaker C: Like you could walk in. I could walk in the juke joint like this and get a drink.
• 57:39
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 57:39
  Speaker C: Band playing, whatever. If you had the money and you. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna serve you. You can get something to eat, you can get a drink, you could do all.
• 57:47
  Speaker B: Have you ever walked in the room and just thought, I'm gonna die?
• 57:50
  Speaker C: Sometimes?
• 57:51
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 57:51
  Speaker C: And I turned around and left and somebody got killed. Yeah, like 30 seconds after.
• 57:56
  Speaker B: I've been there too.
• 57:57
  Speaker C: Yeah, lots of, of times. Lots of times in New Orleans. So I, I grew up in that rural community, but you know, I raised myself in New Orleans for sure. That's how that go, right? Yeah.
• 58:10
  Speaker A: Well, so let's fast forward. So you're. So you, you're. You get a contract from the Kansas City Chiefs. You play.
• 58:18
  Speaker C: I went to school first.
• 58:18
  Speaker A: I was okay.
• 58:19
  Speaker B: Well were you drafted by them or you were a free agent?
• 58:23
  Speaker C: Just, I, Well, I turned. Well, I had an agent. My agent screwed up the draft program.
• 58:34
  Speaker B: What year is this?
• 58:35
  Speaker C: He was dumb. This is 1985.
• 58:37
  Speaker B: He okay. Way back.
• 58:38
  Speaker C: He triple dipping. And he misses the call. Like they get the call and they transfer the call to you.
• 58:48
  Speaker B: Right.
• 58:48
  Speaker C: Or pick up the call.
• 58:50
  Speaker B: It was way simpler back then. Now they have the big show and all that for the draft.
• 58:54
  Speaker C: But back then it was like two, three phones and he misses the call. So I was being drafted by the Chargers.
• 59:01
  Speaker B: Uh huh.
• 59:02
  Speaker C: That motherfucker missed the call. So the people who knew what was going on was like, hey man, what you gonna do? You turn that down? I was like, no, I didn't turn it down. And so I was like, what is it? And so like, literally I'm in a college dorm, this dude's calling me on a cell phone. I mean, not a cell phone, a damn payphone.
• 59:24
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 59:25
  Speaker C: It's a payphone, sure. He calls me back in my dorm on a payphone. And so he was like, oh man, did you hear from San Diego? I was like, no, I didn't. And so I knew something was like going on wrong. Then 10 minutes later, later I get a call from a Guy named Roy Green. So Roy was a. He played for. Roy was pretty famous. And he. He played the Henderson also.
• 59:51
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 59:52
  Speaker C: But he was playing for St. Louis Cardinals, and he was the guy who had the longest kick return, you know, on record and, like, 102 yard kick return on there. But he was like one of the cats that was like.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker B: I remember Green.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, Roy Green. He was a great player. So he called me and he was like, barnes, what happened? I said, man, I think the guy missed the call. And he was like, what? And so he's like, how could he miss the call? He's like, who in the freaking hell?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker B: Who's your fucking agent? Yeah, what's his name?
• 1:00:25
  Speaker C: Exactly. That's what Roy said. Roy was like, wait a minute. So he was like. He said, call him and tell him you're letting him go right now. He was like, all you need to do is give him a verbal commitment. You can send him a letter in the morning. They had protocol to it. So I called the guy back and told him that, and he said, don't worry. You're gonna be on the team before the sunrise. And that's what happened. So instead of I missed, he screwed up the draft. I did that. Had to, like, wake up at the break of dawn, go hustle, you know, type up a letter, fax machine, da, da, da. And, you know, by sunset, I was with the Chiefs.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker B: So was it the same round? The same round.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker C: It wasn't the same round. Then I had to sign as a free agent.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker B: Okay. Okay.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker C: So I signed on with Roy's agent.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker A: Okay. They did switch agents. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker C: Fired a guy.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker B: It wasn't Lon Rosen, was it?
• 1:01:24
  Speaker C: Huh? Yep. I don't think it was Lara Rosa, but I would. I probably.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker B: Who was the coach of the Chiefs that year? I'm trying to remember.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker C: John McAvick.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker C: Mack was the coach.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker C: It was a kind of transitional time.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker B: That's when they still had artificial turf at Arrowhead. Right?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker C: Yeah. That was like, ruin your life.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's horrible.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker C: It was. It got me, like, I. I got turf toe.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker A: Turf toe.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker C: We got turf toe.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker A: But first time turf toe has come up on the Troubleman podcast.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker C: It was trouble, baby.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was trouble.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker C: It was just like some side carpet stretched over concrete, right?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker B: No, that's what it is.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker A: No padding. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker C: I'm like, bruh. And so. But it was, you know, it was a good. It was a good thing. So, you know, I get my first little check. I sent it to my old man, you know, he's still working graveyard Chef. He. 87 years old.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker B: Wow. Oh, man.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker A: And he must have been so proud.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker C: Man.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker A: He must have been. So.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker B: So you made the team for that your rookie year. You made the team as a db?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker C: No, no, I'm a. I'm a. I'm a outside linebacker.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker B: Okay, Outside linebacker.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker C: I was outside linebacker. Slash defensive end because they're transitioning from the old four, four, four, three.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker B: Okay. He seems kind of small to be a de.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker C: No, I was 245.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker B: Okay. All right.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker C: And that's average size. You know, just linebacker size.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker C: You have to get rid of all that. And as you get a little older, you get wise and you say, this is not what you need to carry around.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker C: Practical in today's world.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker C: Well, you know, at that time, you know, so.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker B: Okay, just. We get. We'll wrap this. But what's your highlight? Your one year in the NFL? What, did you recover a fumble? Did you intercept the pass? Did you sack somebody?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker C: Well, you sack people all the time. That's. My job was to sack people. So what I had to do was sign a contract with the USFL in the middle of it.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker B: Oh, I see.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker C: So we did, you know, hey, a. Signed a contract with the Generals, which was Trump's team at the time. Clandestine, in the middle of the night. Nobody knows about this but me and them, supposedly, plus the other five cats who was rookies, like me on the Chiefs. We go. We sign these contracts. We go up there, you know, Herschel's playing up there. The Chiefs, Walker.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker C: You know, we're going there to the.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker B: Because they were trying to poach and offend players, just like the AFL did back in the.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker C: Had the lawsuit. So the lawsuit was that. That.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. Trump's been in court his whole life, hasn't he?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, he loves it.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker C: He loves it longer than his whole life. He was born into court.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker C: And questionable and all that, but. Yeah. No, so they had that. And the monopoly was abc, NBC and CBS was monopolizing pro football.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker C: And sports in general. Howard Cosell became the star witness for the USFL and that antitrust suit, which was with espn, right? They won the suit.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker C: They got a. It was a antitrust suit. It was gonna. The actual award was $1.2 billion. A lot of money back then. But the judge awarded them $1. They ended up with three bucks.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker B: Ah, well, you know, because I.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker C: So we all got black boys when. Also, wow.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker B: Being in la, when the Raiders moved to la. I got season tickets for the Raiders and the USFL was there also.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker C: Rotten ass team. Raiders and the Chiefs, boy, they.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker B: Oh yeah, I don't like each other anyway. But the USFL was so bad off, you could go to us, you know, my season tickets for the Raiders for eight games was back then like 250 bucks, which is.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker C: I believe it.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, crazy, you know, crazy cheap for now. But usfl, you could walk up and buy a ticket for A$6.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker C: You was in there for sure. And a good seat.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, we're talking LA Coliseum, 100,000 seats. So a dollar could get you very close or really far dollar make you holler, you know. So let me go get back to the Chiefs real quickly. So you. How many games did you play? Did you play the whole season for the Chiefs? 14 games.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker C: I, I got up to the part where, well, they actually, they went to the playoffs that year.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker C: But we all got busted out right before that. So, you know when you're out there and you're doing your thing and they say, Barnes Green, Oliver Jones, go see the equipment manager.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker B: Ah, yeah.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker A: You know, it's not going to be good.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker B: It's not good.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker B: So if I get, if I find your NFL trading card, what will your stats look like?
• 1:06:19
  Speaker C: The stats were not gigantic because, you.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker B: Know, you didn't play that.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker C: I mean, I played, but, you know, it was, it was like, you know, when you're a rookie, you're coming in the first season, you know, you're doing what you do.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker B: So you're talking 88.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker C: No, no, 86.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker B: 86. So Bo Jackson's not in the league just yet.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker C: Yes, he is.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker B: Okay. Did you have to go up against Bo?
• 1:06:40
  Speaker C: I saw Bo when he played his first. Yeah, Bo went to the Raiders, but he was also playing for the Kansas City.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, right. Exactly right.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker C: So when he made that first home run, I was sitting chair behind him, half asleep with a hot dog and a beer in my hand, right behind the catcher's mouth. So we would, the deal was we would have practice.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker C: And then the Rawls had just won the series. Oh, man, this is, I mean that was actually the highlight of like being in Kansas City was the Adams Mark Hotel across the street from.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker B: Because both stadiums are next door to each other.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker C: They're right next door. So yeah, we practice. And it was, you know, all the athletes just moved back and forth, a lot of mingling.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker B: We got to move on from your football career. But one more question, one more question about your football career. So you're playing for The Chiefs. What is your one highlight? I mean, do you have, like I said, was there a fumble recovery? Who did you sack? Did you sack, you know, Joe Montana or.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker C: Joe was just. Well, he was, he was in the league.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, I know he was in the league in the 80s and stuff.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker C: He was in the league. I think, you know, some of the more memorable stuff was like playing the Raiders and just seeing how nasty they were. You know, these people come with a, a giant 711 size gulp of piss and when you come out to shoot, they're gonna pour it on your head. That's what you get with the Raiders if you go to play the Raiders.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker A: That's what people love about the Raiders.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker C: Yeah, I cannot lie.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker B: It's a commitment. It's a commitment to excellence.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker C: That is like what you get.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker C: Or just like the cross state rivalry between the Cardinals and the Chiefs, you know?
• 1:08:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's rough too.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker C: It's a bus ride, bro, you know.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker C: So you had to get on the bus and.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker B: But they don't have a team anymore. St. Louis.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker C: Well, that's different. But, but you know, at that time that's what was going on.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker A: All right, well, we gotta fast forward quick because we're kind of on the downslope of the podcast and we haven't gotten, haven't gotten to Sunpies music career yet. Well, you know, it's been covered so much. You know, we're happy in the trouble in podcast. Some times I was wearing. We. It's. It's better to, to focus on the, the less covered issues. But you wind up leaving football. They. They offer you a position in the Canadian league. You decide. I don't love football that much. I love nature. I want to be a national park race.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker C: I did go back, I did go back to my notepad and the reason I played, you know, pro ball was because of the opportunity. Was there.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker A: Sure, why not? Who wouldn't?
• 1:09:19
  Speaker C: Yeah, I'll check it out. But I also didn't want to have. I was committed to not having lifetime injuries that I thought would like slow me down.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker C: I actually was very forward thinking about it. And once I got turf toe and saw how hard it was to even bounce back from it and I was wearing knee braces. They have a knee injury. But you know, they were like, are you crazy? And, but I also had some, some veterans like Delon Cherry, different people like that. That was, that was, you know, a few people would like pull you to the side and actually, you know, talk to your coach, your counselor and Try and help you. You know, it's like same time with Christian Aqua, all these different dudes. You know, we were all young rookies coming.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker B: Well, that's the thing in the NFL, the average career is three years.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Two and a half. Three years.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. But in order to make like a pension, you got to play five years, right?
• 1:10:13
  Speaker C: That's right.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker C: That's.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker C: And I was like, to hell with that somewhere else.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker A: Sure, I can do.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker C: Well, literally, I was like, I think I, I, I just was adamant about not wanting that many injuries. And everybody I knew had serious, serious injuries.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker B: Well, because it's a collision sport.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker C: Yeah. Well, it was also that turf at the, that time, you know, like, they had to water the field down all the time to just try and get rid of the. Some of the resistance. You know, you look at somebody like Jim Dombrowski, one of the cats, like that.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker C: Oh, man.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker B: And so, so you decided on the forestry?
• 1:10:51
  Speaker C: I decided I would go back to National Park Service. And, you know, I went to Canada up there, and they had, you know, I could, I had like, a choice of teams I could have played on, but I was like, you know, I'm okay with it because this was not actually on my, my list of dreams and things that I wanted to do. And I was, I was all right with not, you know, a lot of people thought I was crazy, you know, like my friends and stuff, and they were, and they were like, oh, man. Especially guys I play ball with who looks crazy now.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker B: What was your number? What was your number with the Chiefs? What Was your number?
• 1:11:24
  Speaker C: 43.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker B: 43.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker C: Yeah. You know, they was like, man, they was like, damn, boys. We knew you wasn't, you didn't give a damn about none of that. I was like, hey, man, you want that? Go get. But, you know, a lot of them, you know, these are buddies of mine, but they, you know, like, that is why they went to school, period, you know.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker A: Right. They didn't have the options that you had.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker C: No. And I, you know, when I worked for the National Park Service, I had a superintendent who did a beautiful thing for me, and that is he froze my status and he said, I'm put you on leave without pay if you decide you want to come back to the National Park Service.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker A: That's pretty cool, huh?
• 1:12:02
  Speaker C: It's going to be here for you. Yes. That one thing right there was like.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker B: What'S your favorite park?
• 1:12:10
  Speaker C: Wow. I don't know that Volcano national park lately. It's Volcano national park now.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker A: I know it's not the one we went to two days earlier where the park ranger said, no, said, get out. This will blow your mind. You have to come back tomorrow because I'm going to give a talk on this temple. That will blow your mind. And we all went. Bruce was there.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker C: I was.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker A: No, I told my wife. I said, he blew my afternoon is what he did.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker C: Yeah, he did. He was not an interpretive park ranger.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker A: And so now that thing that he did with his zipper where he pretended that his fly was down, do you think that he. He pulled it down and said, oops, and then pulled it back up.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker C: He did. Some of that was a bit. Yeah, it was. Because it was not true. And not only that, he was not. He was not a trained interpreter. Yeah, Like, I, you know, I, I.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker B: Well, I noticed park rangers always have the little sketches they do because going. Yeah. Going to Yosemite as a kid, he'd go to these campfires and stuff, and the park ranger would teach you about this and teach you about that. And they all had a, you know, stick.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker C: Yeah. You know, I always. Well, I learned something about. I don't know, I just had a different approach to it. Like, I was always going to be, like, open, straightforward, and. And same thing I do when I play music. I'm gonna look at the people in front of me and I'm gonna give them accurate information in the best way that I can. Say that you. I'm really going to try and serve it up to you on a silver platter according to who's in front of me. Not. Not like a canned speech or any of that shit like that. Because I want you to actually, like, understand the depth of, like, what the interpretive conversation is about. So it's going to be different from that. And, you know, years later, you know, I end up helping to write what is called interpretive manual for the National Park Service. That's like, how do you have the correct components to interpretation? You know, let's face it, National Park Service was like a whole lot of other parts of the federal government. It was jacked up in a lot of ways.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker C: About, like, what is a national treasure? Okay. And then you have national treasures. And who are you talking to?
• 1:14:29
  Speaker B: Because I think Gilbert Gottfried as a national treasure.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker A: He was for sure.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker B: I think so.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker B: You know, but now the park Services are in disarray because of our president.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker A: Right. He's.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker C: Yes, they are. They have dismantled, fired, gotten rid of most of all ephemeral knowledge.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker A: It's crazy.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker C: National parks, they've overtaken national parks. They've. In their first administration, they got rid of Escalantes national park and places like that so they could do angle drilling and take all the mineral rights.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker A: And that's something that the American people love. We love our national parks. And look, going to those, even the dinky one we went to, that was fantastic. I mean, you know, that guy aside.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker C: Yeah. The story and the reasoning of it is like a real thing.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker A: It's such a, such an amazing resource. And especially going to Volcano national park, it was $30 for the two people in our car for seven days. And you could spend five days cruising around there and seeing stuff.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker C: You get all the national park you can, you can, you can handle and a whole lot more. You know, you can get to America the beautiful, pass for 80 bucks and go to any national park in the, on the planet. And, you know, National Park Service also has, like, agreements with about 128 countries. So, you know, around the country, globe, and that's. Those things are like, real stuff.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, but the bugs and crickets make me nervous.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker A: They don't have any bugs.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker C: They have. They have a few bugs, but they weren't. It's not like down here.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker A: It's not like mosquitoes biting you.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker C: They're not coming to ravage you.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker A: No, no, no. Mosquitoes never bite me anyway. They always go for somebody else's easier target. Well, well, Bruce, man. Well, we didn't even get to your music career.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker B: Everyone knows about his career in music. He's a rock star. We all know that. My wife said she used to dance with you when you played back in the 90s.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker C: Maple Leaf, maybe.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, she was, she danced with you a lot because she was very impressed that we were having you on the show, you know, because usually we have some. Has been. We don't have much.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker C: Yeah, you're right.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker B: We actually have a name on the show. All right, thanks for being here. And, and you, you said that you played, you opened for Sting.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker C: I played in a band with Sting and Paul Simon for about two and a half, three years.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker A: Oh, you played with them now, what was that like? Talk about that a little bit.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker C: It was good, you know, I played.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker A: What were you playing?
• 1:17:06
  Speaker C: Random.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker A: Playing harmonica, playing accordion, playing talking drum.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker C: I played percussion. I played accordion, harmonica, sang dance. I don't know. I just got a random call from Paul Simon out of nowhere on my government phone, by the way.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker C: On a Sunday when I normally have the phone.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker B: And you had just gotten bit by a snake.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker C: Always off 2013. And that was like A strange period because I had just done a tour with Joe Sample.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, From Jazz Crusaders.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker C: Yeah. And we went to Tokyo, did Tokyo Jazz Fest and all this stuff like that. And he wanted me to play accordion and I did. And then he got frustrated that he was playing accordion. He did this whole Creole thing and he was like, how come my accordion don't sound like his? I was like, well, freaking twenty thousand dollar Potosa. I don't know.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, there's levels to the game.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker C: It was like a different thing. But, you know, like a month later I got a random call from Paul asking me if I would. Hey, man, you want to play some music sometime? And I was like, who is, you know? He was like, oh, this is Paul Simon. I was, you know, I was getting ready to cussing because I was like, which one am I? Knucklehead Friends is calling me on this phone. First of all, it's not my regular cell phone, it's my government's phone. I just turn it on for a second to see if it was charging up. He was like, ah, you want. I just wonder if you want to play some music sometime. And I was like, it was so weird. Like, the voice was like so timid and weird. I was like, yeah, sure, man. And, you know, he invited me up to New York and I went up and basically it was like an audition, but he had me come up and play.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker C: You know, they were recording everything, but I was accordion. And they had a. A flamenco dancer dancing. And I was like playing to the rhythms of the. The dancer from there, you know, Like a couple of weeks later asked me I wanted to join his band.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker C: I was like, yeah, I think I do. And I didn't know how I was gonna do it, but I had this happen once before with Harry Belafonte, asked me to join.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker A: Oh, wow. A giant.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker C: And I just. A real giant caught me off guard. I didn't know how to. I said yes. But then I said, well, when is this happening? It was like a Friday night. I'm sitting there with the answer phone on, you know, like the answering machine. And he said, oh, man, we're starting rehearsals on Sunday and we're doing six weeks on Broadway. We're doing three weeks of rehearsal, six weeks on Broadway. And then we're starting in South Africa and we're doing a world tour. And I was like, what Sunday? He was like, this Sunday? And this is Friday night, right?
• 1:19:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker C: So I was like, damn, if I do this and I don't make the band like you. I do the audition or whatever and I don't make the band. I'm out of a job. So it just caught me off guard. And then I was. I kicked myself forever.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker A: Right?
• 1:20:14
  Speaker C: This was in the early 90s. And I was like, why do you even ask me that? And I just couldn't figure it out. But he called me up out of nowhere. I was like, how the hell does Harry Belafonte have my phone number?
• 1:20:26
  Speaker B: You got it from Paul Simon.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker C: No, I'm living with Henry. No, he didn't know Paul Simon at that time. I mean, this is like practically 20 years earlier. So I was like, if I ever get a call like that again, I'm just gonna say yes.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker A: Pull the trigger. Yeah, right, right, right, right, right.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker C: So it did happen. And, you know, I joined Paul's band and we started playing music together and we did some gigs. And then he called me up and said, hey, you want to do this tour? We're doing a tour with Sting. It's gonna be Paul and Sting together, and we're gonna do like a tour. And I was like, sure, man. And I didn't know what I was getting into, but it was, you know, we did like 24 arenas around us and started in Houston and just went all around the U. S and Canada came back. And I was like, wow, that was great.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker A: So all your football buddies weren't. Weren't shaking their heads then at you?
• 1:21:19
  Speaker C: Right. And so I come back home and, you know, and then he calls me up like about three weeks later and said, hey, pie, did you like the tour? I was like, man, what? Yeah, I like the tour. And you know, we. I mean, every show was sold out. I would. I will say the Garden was like a highlight. Sold out shows in Madison Square Garden.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker C: Incredible. And then he called me up and asked me, he was like, would you like to do that again? I was like, yeah, let's, dude. He's like, well, it's gonna be a little longer this time. And I was like, okay. And I didn't know how I was gonna get out of my job, cuz I took a sabbatical.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker C: And. And I had to have it approved, like from D.C. right. And the people in New Orleans, quite frankly, giving me hell, they're like, oh, you can't do that. And I was like, well, shit, I've been working for park service for 30 years. I can take us a medical.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker C: So. And it was the first one I taken. So when he asked me again, I was like, well, how long Is it? He said, well, it's going to be 50 countries. I was like, okay, yeah, I'm doing it.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker A: Say yes. That's.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker C: So I had to figure out how to take a sabbatical again. But I called a guy in D.C. who was like the head of like Park Service in. He was like, yeah, man, do it. He was like, he was like, yeah. He signed the papers and sent it back immediately.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker B: So how did the show go in Afghanistan? That's what I wanted.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker C: We never made it.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker B: You never made it to Afghanistan?
• 1:22:50
  Speaker C: Abu Dhabi.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker A: Abu Dhabi, okay.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker C: But I, you know, uae. It just so happened. I got, they had the VERA visa program and I, I was able to retire in 2015. It was just like a one. It was in Obama's administration. Administration. They gave us 10 days to decide if like a whole group of people if you want to stay or retire or. And get the full retirement benefits, fifty thousand dollar bonus. And I was like, I didn't know if I want to retire from the Park Service because I love, you know, the gig. But I was at the last second I turned in the paper like what, seven minutes left and you know, this is government. This ain't no retirement. I press enter and then nothing happens. I was like, oh shit, I don't know if I'm out of a job, if I have. And then three days later I get the congratulations, you're retired. And then five days later I was off on that tour. Wow. So, you know, it was a long tour. It was five months.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker A: So that, that, that, that pro and con sheet that you drew up on, on the legal pad worked out after.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker C: All that part did work. So that was, you know, it was a great tour.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker A: Well, you know, I have so much many more notes and, and we didn't get to, to figure out how, you know, Stanley Atkins, George Reinecke and Nikki Sonsenbach. But, but you do and that's enough. And, and, and you also have, have the North Northside Skull and Bone gang that you've revitalized and you know, you're playing gigs all the time. So everybody keep an eye out for, for Sunpie Barns and do yourself a favor. Fresh local product, you know, Fresh local product. I love it. Thank you so much. Great having you on here. And Senpai, as always on the Troubleman podcast, we like to say trouble never.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker B: Ends, but you know, the struggle continues on. Good night.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker A: Good night.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker C: Right.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker D: We are the north side. We come to remind you before you die, you better get your, your life together. Next time you see us, it's too Late to cry. We are the north side. Skull and Ball gang, we come to remind you. Before you die, you better get yours. Your life is gathered. Next time you see us, it's too late to cry. Ashes, your ashes well and dust your dust you better spin up. Well before you come to. You better get your life together. Next time you see us. It's too late to cry. We are the north side. Well, that's Skull and Bone gang we come to remind you well before you die. Well, you better get your life together. Next time you see us. It's too late to cry. We are the north as well as Skull and Bone gang we come to remind you before you die, you better get your life together. Next time you see us. It's too late to cry. Ashes to ashes are. And duck your ducks. What you wrestling up? Yeah, yeah. Before you come here, you better get your life together. Next time you see us, it's too late to cry. We are the north side. Well, that's Skull and Bone gang we come to remind you what is for you. You better get your life together. Next time you see us. It's too late to cry. We are the north side. Oh, Skull and Bone gang, we come to remind you. Before you die, you better get your your life together. Next time you see us. It's too late to cry and get your asses and just adjust. You better spring up before you come see us. Well, you better get your life together. Next time you see us. It's too late to cry. Nonstop scurril and ball game There.