Full Transcript

Stephen: And clear your voice. Clear your throat. Really getting into that this morning.

Shaler: Little phlegmy this morning, are you, Steve?

Stephen: Little phlegmy. A little bit, just a little, you know. I don't want to sound like NPR or something, where we're all like, [whispering] "Good morning, it's 7:30. We have to be quiet because our wives are asleep."

Neal: Which is true. [laughter]

Stephen: Hey everybody, it's The Williams Brothers Podcast.

Garr: I'm Garr.

Stephen: I'm Stephen.

Neal: I'm Neal.

Shaler: I'm Shaler.

Garr: Maybe the third time's a charm on this one, because we've tried this twice before and it hasn't worked out.

Stephen: Right, there have been two other episodes that will never make it to air, quote-unquote. But the good thing is we can talk about everything that we talked about in those two again.

Neal: We don't need content this time. We've got it. We've got it.

Shaler: So what's happening, guys?

Stephen: Uh, it's early. My neighbor's already out there in his front yard going through it like inch by inch.

Garr: Man. Mowing?

Stephen: No, no. He's out there with a bucket and some sort of a rake, walking around looking for weeds, I think. He's determined.

Shaler: I have a question related to yards and early mornings. What time is acceptable to start mowing your lawn in your neighborhood?

Stephen: Seven here. After seven.

Garr: Really?

Shaler: Wow.

Garr: Nine. 9:00 AM.

Neal: I think 9-ish. Although they're building some houses not too far from here and they have a 7:00—there's a big sign, 7:00 is the earliest they can start construction. So that's when we start hearing sounds back there. But for the neighbors, I don't hear much before nine. Maybe even ten.

Stephen: Yeah, normally here we don't either.

Shaler: Yeah, I've set an 8:00 time for myself, because I've heard neighbors start earlier and that bothers me. And so I'm like, well, 8:00 seems like people will be awake, it's still not too hot, and so I've kind of set the 8:00 time for my personal lawn care, you know.

Stephen: So there's no HOA ruling on that?

Shaler: I don't think so, no, I haven't seen anything.

Stephen: Because we do have that. We've got the 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM you can make noise, but after that or before that, nope, no way.

Garr: So you'd probably get a pass in August, because it is so crazy hot, and even early. So even if someone was out cutting their yard at 7:30, I'd go, yep, I get it, because in about 2 hours it's going to be 90 degrees.

Shaler: So I mowed the lawn with my, you know, I have the lawn tractor, whatever you want to call the thing, the riding lawn mower. Got it all done, and I still had to do the weed-eating. I felt so crummy. I mean, I had like, itchy arms and eyes watering and all that, so I didn't do it. The next day I felt worse, and then the following day I felt even worse. So I was like, I've just been feeling bad ever since I mowed the lawn three days ago.

Neal: Do you have any lettuce growing in your yard? [laughter]

Shaler: Lettuce? No. What?

Neal: That whole lettuce thing that's going on in the news where people are getting sick. I just didn't know.

Shaler: No, not that kind of sick.

Stephen: Nothing explosive. That's good.

Shaler: So I will get out today, hopefully, and get some weed-eating done to at least finish the lawn that was cut four days ago. I probably need to mow it again, but anyway.

Garr: You wear a mask when you cut the yard?

Shaler: I don't, but I probably should. I need just like something that covers my whole face, I think, because it's my eyes that really—that's what.

Stephen: Goggles. Get out there with a mask and goggles, that's what you need.

Shaler: Yeah, like a ski mask, right?

Garr: I've done it with a mask before when it's—because I probably don't have them as bad as you do. I've got like a face shield, too, that I use. I've got a weed eater and it's like an industrial weed eater, so stuff just goes everywhere. So I've got the long pants, the long shirt, gloves, hat, and then I've got this face shield, because inevitably the stuff will like throw back in my face.

Neal: Do you wear the mask with the face shield, too?

Garr: I have worn the mask and the face shield, yes.

Stephen: I was just going to say, if you do the goggles, get a photo of that, because that would be good for the Facebook page. Everybody on the Facebook page would enjoy that.

Shaler: Every one of us on the Facebook page.

Neal: So it's like a beekeeper, basically, right? Is that the sort of suit you have?

Stephen: Yeah, that would be good. That's good. Or like a hazmat. Like a white hazmat.

Shaler: Right, with the hose. See, now you're talking.

Stephen: Yeah, with the hose, right!

Neal: Like Among Us, that guy.

Stephen: In the backpack.

Shaler: You've got to keep cool, so you have to have that ventilation going. Right, right. Now I get it, totally get it.

Garr: Or you just get a lawn service. You can do that.

Stephen: Yeah, you could do that.

Shaler: Well, that's not nearly as much fun, but anyway.

Garr: Do you ever drive the lawn mower to the CVS and back just—

Neal: Oh, all the time! Yeah, that's Babson Park, baby!

Shaler: He's in Polk County, it's okay.

Neal: But it's not the CVS, we don't have a CVS. We have a Dollar General.

Garr: Dollar General, there we go.

Neal: We have the Dollar General.

Stephen: Or "DG," as it's now being known, I think.

Neal: What is it?

Stephen: I think they're calling it DG now.

Shaler: DG, yeah.

Stephen: Like KFC and Dunkin', like nobody has the time to finish the entire title of the restaurant, so. We'll just call it Dunkin'.

Shaler: Yes, I take the Husqvarna down to the old Dollar General and get me my beer.

Stephen: You could do that in Polk County, that's okay, that's a common thing.

Garr: Babson Park, baby!

Shaler: Nobody would blink an eye in Babson Park.

Garr: And you could like cut the median on the way down and cut the other median on the way back.

Stephen: Exactly. Public service! [laughter] They would love that.

Garr: They would.

Neal: I don't know though, Grady Judd down there, I don't know if he would allow you to ride your riding mower.

Stephen: Oh, he's good people. Shaler's good people. He wouldn't hassle Shaler.

Neal: I can see you on the morning briefing with your picture.

Stephen: He thought it would be funny to drive his lawn mower to the CVS.

Neal: "So one of my nice officers was happy to show him to an overnight stay."

Neal: "He came for vacation and left on probation." That's his favorite line.

Stephen: I like that one, that's good.

Shaler: Y'all heard about the K-9 that got shot recently in Polk County?

Stephen: No.

Neal: No.

Shaler: So they were chasing this guy who was, you know, child trafficking or some really bad crime. And so they're chasing him around, trying to figure out where he is, and they got word that he was living in a tent in the woods. And so the K-9 and the K-9 handler and a couple of cops went to find him. And the K-9 found him, and they tried to call him out of the tent, and the guy just starts shooting. And hit the K-9 in the leg. Didn't hit the officers.

Stephen: Oh no, officer down.

Shaler: The officers lit the tent up, and I mean lit it up. And anyway, when Grady Judd was talking about what happened, he said officers responded by firing into the tent, and "and we shot him. We shot him a lot." [laughter] And I was like, yep, perfect.

Stephen: Yeah, I mean, they treat those dogs like an officer, so if you hit one, God help you.

Shaler: Oh, and they airlifted the dog, because in Florida they have—if a K-9 gets shot, it is treated the same as an officer, as a human officer, and they had to airlift the dog to an emergency vet. So I was like, wow, that's—

Stephen: I mean, if they're going to run at a guy with a gun, they should get some treatment, I think. Some pretty good treatment.

Neal: Do they get like a pension, too? Is like a pension he gets, you know, is he like—

Stephen: I don't know.

Shaler: Lifetime supply of Milk-Bones or something, I don't know.

Neal: Has he got a place in Ponte Vedra where he's living now, or just, I don't know. [laughter]

Stephen: Nice retirement community.

Neal: Disabled vet.

Stephen: I've been watching a lot of Cops, which is fun because you kind of learn what police must be dealing with out there. Always the same excuses: "It's not mine." Sure, it's not yours, right, you're walking around with it. But every time there's a K-9 on, Margo comes running in, and she is like glued to the television watching the K-9. And there was this one where this guy was on a roof, and they lifted the K-9 and put him on the roof, and the dog tackled the guy down on the roof. And the dog, you know, when they let those K-9s go, they bark nonstop: "Ruff-ruff-ruff!" I mean, they just keep barking like that. It just adds to the chaos of the whole situation and scares the bejeezers out of the person they're chasing. And Margo was like, her ears were perked up, and she was—she looked like she was on the scene, like literally really there. And she was barking, I mean, she was like really into it. I thought, wow, she loves Cops, we've got to watch more Cops. I wish all the episodes had K-9 units in it because she really loves that part, but yeah.

Garr: Hey, speaking of cops, I got a great Florida Man story.

Stephen: Oh, good.

Shaler: Let's do it.

Garr: All right, here we go. 24-year-old guy was driving around Loxahatchee, Florida—that tells you something right there—when he spotted a 3.5-foot alligator on the side of the road. Most people would call animal control or just keep driving. James decided the logical next step was to grab the gator, toss it in the bed of the pickup truck, and head to Wendy's. He pulled up to the drive-thru window, ordered a large drink, and then hurled the live alligator through the open window at the startled employee. The clerk jumped out of the window in panic. James sped off. He was later charged with assault with a deadly weapon (the alligator), unlawful possession of an alligator, and transporting an alligator without a permit. The gator survived the ordeal.

Neal: Probably his cousin working the drive-in that day or something, yeah, I can see that.

Shaler: That's a good one. How big was this gator again? What was the—

Garr: It was 3.5 feet, which is pretty, you know, that's manageable, but that's a good size. It's not like a baby alligator.

Neal: Hey, how's Cop City? I haven't heard much about Cop City in Atlanta. Is it still there or—

Stephen: No, yeah, Cop City, it's quiet. It's not called Cop City. It's a training center for police officers. But the people who were protesting against it, who are all not from Atlanta by the way, all from somewhere else, somehow had the money to travel here and live here for who knows how long trying to protest the whole thing. But as far as I know, that whole thing has calmed down.

Stephen: Oh, a gripe! Here we go again.

Intro Stinger: The Williams Brothers have a gripe.

Garr: So I've got the Nextdoor app. Do you guys have Nextdoor, the Nextdoor app?

Shaler: Yes, I do.

Stephen: I log on to the site every now and then, but I don't have the app.

Neal: Not at the moment. I've had it before, but not right now.

Garr: Okay, but you know what it is, right? Everybody sells things and all these things.

Stephen: Angry neighbors.

Garr: Exactly right, yeah.

Neal: Cutting their grass too early in the day.

Stephen: Right, exactly. "I'm sick and tired of this! What are they building at this corner of this street and this street? It's too much!"

Garr: So this time of year, every year, we get multiple posts where someone will have a snake in their backyard and they'll take a picture of it and they'll say, "What kind of snake is this?" And you get all these responses, and nine times out of ten it's a, you know, black racer, rat snake, something like that. So this one lady posts this picture of a snake, but the snake is in two pieces because she has hacked the snake, right? Because she does not like snakes. And she said, "What kind of snake is this?" And you get all the comments like, "It looks like a dead snake," "It looks like an ex-snake," all this. But then, and this is the part that really kind of griped me, there are 50 posts slamming this poor woman for killing the snake. "And don't you know that after you kill a snake, the snake's brain is still active for up to 6 hours feeling all of this pain?" And just trashing, talking about what a terrible person—I mean literally like 50 posts talking about what a terrible person this lady is for killing a snake. You know what, you can think that, but to actually take the time to post it?

Stephen: Right. Well, they found their opportunity to have the moral high ground. They're like, "Oh goody, I can judge someone and tell them how bad they are, make myself feel better."

Neal: Very sad.

Garr: Yes. Which is why I stay off of social media, because I'm just like, really, is this your life, you know, is to, like you said, take the moral high ground on everything, at least through social media?

Neal: "Send me your address, I'll bring the snakes to your house. Happy to drop them off since you love snakes."

Garr: Yeah. So it was very sad. I was just, come on, guys, really? That's how you spend your day?

Stephen: Yeah. I mean, I hate when people kill just any old snake just because they eat, you know, vermin and things, you know, like chipmunks, which I'm all for eating chipmunks. If anything eats chipmunks, I want it in my yard, because I'm not a chipmunk fan at all. They dig holes everywhere.

Neal: They're greasy, too. They're just greasy. [laughter] They're not good, no. They're gamey.

Stephen: They don't taste like chicken. No. And it takes like five of them really to get a good meal.

Neal: They're so small.

Shaler: They're cute, though. I mean, chipmunks are cute. They sing well. They're good singers, apparently, so.

Stephen: They do sing well, at Disney.

Garr: They get into trouble sometimes, but—

Stephen: Oh yeah, they get into all kinds of hijinks. Those scamps.

Stephen: Have you seen the different control methods of controlling chipmunks?

Neal: No, I'm sure I haven't.

Stephen: They look like medieval torture devices or whatever. They have these things that are like jaws, like mouse traps sort of, but they're like plastic jaws, and you just put them where the chipmunk runs past because chipmunks are always darting around. And it just goes whack, and it just kills them. Like squishes them. And I'm like, that's terrible! I mean, I don't like chipmunks, but I can't see doing that to a live animal. I found a chipmunk that was like almost dead. I think a cat had gotten to it or a raccoon or something, and it was almost dead, but it wasn't dead. So what would you do? I mean, the thing can't move, you could tell it's alive, but how would you kill it?

Shaler: I don't know, good question.

Neal: If it's almost dead, I think you probably just have to put it out of its—

Shaler: Get a hammer and—I mean, a hammer! [laughter] I was going to say, get a shovel and just kind of, you know, whack it and try to—

Garr: You've got to put it out of its misery if it's going to die anyway. You don't let it suffer.

Neal: Choke it out. I mean, just— [laughter] I was trying to one-up your hammer.

Shaler: I could see Stephen trying to—now, how do I do this exactly? Get a little string and wrap it around its neck.

Stephen: Oh, jeez.

Shaler: Some piano wire.

Shaler: My computer is like very jittery, and sometimes it seems like it's kind of stopping for a second.

Stephen: So if you sneak up on your computer and go "Boo!", it's like "Aah!"? Is it that jittery?

Shaler: Sort of, sort of, yeah. It's kind of a Don Knotts kind of a jittery thing going on there, you know.

Stephen: Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

Neal: Too much coffee.

Shaler: It could be.

Stephen: Don Knotts, man, he was the best. People don't even know.

Neal: Speaking of Don Knotts, I saw this morning, it's a Scooby-Doo remake. It was a social media thing, and it looks exactly like the original Scooby-Doo, and Don Knotts' Scooby-Doo is in there as well, the cartoon character. And they're investigating the reflecting pond in Washington to see who sabotaged it. It's quite funny. I won't tell you who did it, by the way. When they unmask at the end, I'll leave that up to you.

Shaler: It's got to be the old man.

Neal: "If it wasn't for those meddling kids, he would have gotten away with it, too!" That's the tagline, yep. It's really funny.

Shaler: Mr. Brewster?

Stephen: And it's funny, because how did we not know who it was going to be? Like as kids, it was always like, [gasp] "Oh my gosh, it's Mr. Brewster!" And it was always just a mask.

Shaler: Right, pull the mask off. That's funny. What's your favorite Don Knotts movie?

Stephen: Huh. The only one I know about is The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

Shaler: The one where he's a fish?

Neal: The Apple Dumpling Gang.

Stephen: Oh yeah, that was a good one.

Shaler: Mine is The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, where he goes into the haunted house or whatever. I love that, because he gets up there to do the speech and he's shaking and it's just such a great character, I love it.

Stephen: I just love him in Mayberry. Just Andy Griffith, because when he was put in charge, that was the best, you know? And he was like, "Yep, yep, I'm ready to go!" Just the whole demeanor, the character was fantastic.

Neal: He's so empowered, you know? He's deputized and empowered to be in charge, and he's got his bullet in his top pocket and all that. It's just great.

Stephen: Right, yeah, his one bullet. That's right, I forgot about that.

Neal: Remember the one where he's singing in the choir and he didn't sing that well, and so they had some baritone backstage singing for him, and they were like, "Sing lower, sing lower!" And he's just moving his mouth and this booming voice is coming out? It's hysterical.

Stephen: That reminds me of the ending to Pee-wee's Big Adventure, where they make a movie about him, about the whole thing. And he actually plays the bellhop or whatever at the hotel, and when he opens his mouth, it's not his voice, it's like some big, [deep voice] "Paging Mr. Herman. Please come to the front desk." Good stuff.

Stephen: Paul Reubens, another good one, he was so funny.

Garr: [imitating Harry Caray] Hey! What else is happening?

Garr: There we go. We hadn't had that in a while, that's good. We just needed a topic, we need a good topic.

Stephen: Right.

Neal: What is it about "Move on"? Just answer the question!

Garr: It's a simple question!

Neal: Just say yes and we'll move on!

Garr: [as Harry Caray] If the moon was made of spareribs, would you eat it?

Stephen: Would you eat it? Spareribs!

Stephen: It's not really made of cheese, is it? I just love the whole head going back and forth.

Garr: [as Harry Caray] Hey! What's your favorite planet? Mine's the sun! It's like the king of planets!

Stephen: I'm not even doing a good impression, it's just fun to do.

Garr: If it burns out, we're all dead.

Stephen: Yeah, when that thing burns out, we're all dead!

Shaler: What's fascinating I guess about that is it doesn't really sound like Harry Caray. It's just like a really bad version of Harry Caray, but the character is so funny.

Stephen: Yeah, he did sort of have that slurry sound, but yeah. And he did have a few Budweisers during his games, but yeah.

Neal: And most impressions are like that. The George Bush impressions on SNL didn't really sound like him, but they were funny and you knew who it was, you know. They weren't like Rich Little impressions, that good, they were just funny.

Stephen: Yeah, and it's always like a caricature of him, like the funniest stuff about him.

Garr: They had Harry Caray on Letterman one night, and this was like a YouTube video, so I saw this years later after Will Ferrell had done his thing. And I'm watching because I want to see what was Harry Caray really like. And I could see where Will Ferrell got it from, but yeah, just completely overdone.

Stephen: Oh, right, right. But so funny.

Stephen: Right, and the funny thing is, you know, Harry Caray apparently enjoyed his Budweisers and other beverages, and Skip Caray apparently did as well, because Chip Caray, who was one of Skip Caray's children and was a Braves announcer, was telling the story about when he learned to drive, he hit the gas too hard or let the clutch out too hard or something, and the only thing that Skip Caray was angry about was he spilled his drink. [laughter] I think I told the story before when I worked at The Bull, the radio station here in Atlanta. Skip Caray, it was like one of his last seasons, and he said, he was like, "You can listen to our—" I guess he didn't—he had dealings with The Bull and they weren't good. Anyway, he said, "You can listen to the Braves games in Atlanta on The Bull. Now there's an aptly named station."

Shaler: Bull! Wow.

Stephen: Yeah, it was pretty funny. Another time he tried to let a guest commentator that was on with him—you know, Skip Caray would say where people were from when they caught a foul ball. He would say, "Oh, there's a young man from Greenville, South Carolina caught that one," or whatever. There's no way he could know that, obviously. He doesn't have like a chart of where everybody's from in the entire ballpark. He's just making it up! And so, but it gave him a chance to do like a shout-out to a community somewhere that was watching Braves. And people would go, you know, if you were in Greenville, South Carolina, you'd go, "Oh wow, look, somebody from here!" So he let the guy do it, and the guy's like, somebody caught the foul ball and he's like, "Oh, look at that, a young lady from Saginaw, Michigan picked that one up." And Skip is like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no. No, not Michigan. You've got to pick somebody in Braves country! Somebody in the Southeast who's likely to be watching the game. They're watching the Tigers up there!" It was pretty funny, he like cut him right off. Even though it was completely fictional, it didn't matter.

Garr: I can't find the Braves games anywhere on TV now. I'd love to watch them.

Stephen: I'll tell you how. I've got the secret. Maybe a little too late now, maybe not. BravesVision. It's a streaming app and you can get it by—you just go to bravesvision.com, I think. And it's good, it's fun to watch. They're laid back on it, and they did it at the last minute because they didn't have a network to carry them, so they created their own streaming app and it's part of the MLB app. So on your smart TV, you'll download the MLB app to watch games, you'll pay like $100 for a year, I think, and you can watch every Braves game that's not already broadcast somewhere else.

Garr: Are you paying MLB or are you paying for BravesVision?

Stephen: You're paying for BravesVision. Just BravesVision. So you'll get the Braves games, it'll pop up.

Neal: Yeah, once you go into MLB, all the teams are there, but you can't watch any of the games unless you pay for either that team or the package. You can see the scores, you just can't watch the games unless you—

Garr: I'd pay 100 bucks to watch the Braves for a season, sure.

Stephen: That's what I said. Luckily I found out about it like right at the beginning of the season, so I've been able to watch whatever. And the commentary is more laid-back and loose than what you would find like on network TV or whatever, so they have a good time. And I think Smoltz is one of the commentators, yeah, and he's fun, he's really good.

Garr: Smoltz was a—was a brave back when Elizabeth's dad was playing organ at the park over there, yeah.

Stephen: Really? I didn't know that. I might have seen him play. Wow. That is cool.

Garr: I think Smoltz and Blauser and, you know, all the old guys.

Shaler: Did you know that my daughter had a chest of drawers when she was young that was owned by Chipper Jones? I know, it's crazy!

Stephen: No way. Really?

Shaler: It's crazy. Well, probably, possibly, I'll put it that way. So we bought it at a yard sale, and when we bought it, the guy said that he was I guess friends with Chipper Jones and it was his daughter's chest of drawers and he got it from him, and then we bought it. But it's a good story.

Neal: I've got some earrings. I have some earrings that were owned by Marilyn Monroe.

Stephen: Do you, really? That's right.

Neal: You do, that's right. Yep, that's right.

Stephen: Kind of like George Costanza's Chrysler LeBaron that John Voight supposedly owned. Right, exactly.

Shaler: So the other day, there was some interest to watch the new Avatar fire something movie, fire and ice or something movie that just came out, right? So I was looking to see, okay, well how much is it, and so I'm looking at the deals for Disney, because you can do Disney and Hulu, or Disney, Hulu and ESPN, or Disney and Hulu and HBO Max, or whatever, all these different things. And so I said, well, let me just turn on Disney Channel and see if there's like options before I sign up. So I opened the Disney Channel app on my TV, and it's like I've already signed up or something, and I can access television shows on it. And I'm like, well, that's weird. And then I went to my Hulu app and same thing. And then I look on the Disney+ app on my phone and look at subscriptions, and it says "No Subscriptions" right now. I can't see everything, I can't see all the Star Wars movies, I can't see the new Avatar movie, but there's a lot of things I can see. And there are ads. And I'm curious to know, is Disney doing some thing where they will allow some things to be seen with ads for free? See what y'all can do. It's just very odd. If you don't have Disney, if you're not signed up for Disney, go to the app on your TV or whatever and see if you can see any of the programming.

Neal: Even Amazon, we watch Amazon videos sometimes, and it used to be you were paying for no ads, and now you're getting ads anyway.

Shaler: But you're still paying for it. You're still paying for the service.

Garr: What I do like is they put the timer in the upper right-hand corner, that there's going to be a minute and a half worth of commercials, and you go, okay, great, I know what I can go do for a minute and a half and come back.

Stephen: So that's the thing that my big gripe—

Intro Stinger: Here we go again. The Williams Brothers have a gripe.

Neal: "Yet another."

Stephen: Everybody knows this, I think, but broadcast TV, which is why Disney is probably doing this, is going downhill rapidly. People are not watching over-the-air stations anymore. The nightly news is not like—I don't know if anybody watches the nightly news anymore. Radio is in the same boat. It's aging out. People who are under 50 years old are not listening to the radio much. It's not a choice for them, it's not even like, why would I? But radio still is doing all the stuff it did when it had a demand for it, you know what I mean? When people were like, "Oh, radio, I love radio." Like when it was the only thing out there. So they're still playing, you know, 15 songs in a row or whatever, and they're still running like 8 minutes of commercials nonstop, which to me is like suicide. I don't understand. But I talked to a couple of different consultants, and they said that radio itself will, because it's owned by big companies, will probably have to completely crash and burn. Like it will have to—there'll be nobody left, you know? And then it will reinvent itself.

Shaler: If it's possible to reinvent yourself at that point. If you have—it might be dead. Dead, you know.

Stephen: The only salvation that I see is podcasts. Not this one, obviously, but other podcasts. Because, you know, they're interesting. There are a lot of interesting podcasts out there, which means there's a demand for listening to people talk without music. Because having music be your main draw makes no sense now, because you can get music everywhere.

Garr: For free, yeah.

Neal: Steve Jobs talked about subscription, you know, in the future you'll just subscribe to your music. And that was when everybody was paying $0.99 for songs and LimeWire and all that kind of stuff. And I remember at the time thinking there's no way, there's no way people will—yeah, and now everything's sort of free, or maybe you pay for something.

Shaler: Honestly, I have not listened to a radio station probably in years, because I literally turn on Spotify and that's what everybody's listening to, right?

Stephen: Well, everybody does. And then you hear your own music.

Shaler: Whatever I want to listen to. And the idea of podcasts saving radio, I'm not buying it, because I can listen to podcasts on Spotify. So—

Stephen: Well, I'm not saying it's going to save radio, but I'm saying there's a possibility of some sort of content that young people might enjoy listening to. I don't know what it is.

Shaler: It would have to be a content that's not accessible on an app, because—

Stephen: It would need to be something that happens live and that there's a payoff for it being live. Like it's dangerous, or it's interesting, or it's, I don't know.

Garr: Local, right?

Neal: Local. Local is what made radio so great before was they'd talk about something going on Thursday night down the street or something like that, and you were like, okay, I can connect with this, and the beach and things that impact you locally. And today everything is so spread out.

Stephen: Homogenized, yeah.

Garr: You guys remember this guy, Ed Hartley, "Easy Ed" Hartley?

Stephen: Yeah, oh yeah.

Garr: And that was like the early days of talk radio. It wasn't political, it wasn't agenda-driven, and he had to come up with what am I going to talk about tonight, and then he would take callers that would challenge him on things or agree with him on things. And it's like the only place you can find that now is like on C-SPAN, but it's all political. It's like, okay, well we've got a phone number for the liberals and a phone number for the conservatives. But I like the idea of kind of that old format where, like Neal, like you said, it's local, not super political, topical to the area. We were down in Fort Myers, there was a radio station and all they played were podcasts on the radio, like one after the other. And I mean, some of the podcasts were better than others, but it was kind of interesting just to listen to it. Now yes, you could listen to the podcast over Spotify, but I'm with you, I wish the old talk radio would come back where it wasn't politically driven, it was just topical and people call in. I thought that was fun to listen to.

Stephen: Like local, yeah, something like that maybe. And now with technology, there's probably so many more cool ways to interact that we didn't have back then, you know.

Shaler: And for like a national show, you could probably get away with, you know, like Coast to Coast AM still, because that's got its own little unique thing. Do you remember Coast to Coast AM was all aliens and UFOs and—

Garr: I think he passed away.

Shaler: Art Bell.

Stephen: Art Bell! Yes!

Garr: Art Bell, he was the best, yeah.

Neal: The other thing that's changed is our attention spans, because if you remember back when we were growing up, you had to wait for things. If there was something on that you didn't like, you just had to wait through it for the good song to come on or something like that. Like, I think about 8-track tapes. Remember 8-track tapes, there were one or two songs you liked, and you had to wait until the tape got all the way back around to the song you liked. No fast-forward. And we were patient, or some would say mindful. We were very mindful back then, because we had to wait for things. But today, if it's a song you don't like, whatever it is, it's like you're gone. You're to the next thing, so it's so hard to get engagement.

Stephen: And that's why the 8 minutes of commercials just makes no sense now, because when you've got streaming television with a countdown up there that's like a minute and a half, that's all you're going to have to—you can sit for a minute and a half, but 8 minutes or whatever is too much.

Shaler: It's interesting, we're talking about the radio thing and how they kind of brought that back for I guess for our generation, right? And a lot of bars and nightclubs and stuff are now reverting back to '80s music and '90s music and bringing that crowd back in, because this new generation doesn't drink and they don't smoke and they don't do any of that stuff and they don't go to clubs. And so they have to like bring all these old-school people back, and, you know.

Stephen: They have ladies' night at 7:00 PM, right? [laughter]

Neal: Hey, we're done by 8:30, so!

Stephen: That's right!

Stephen: Yeah, we still drink, that's for sure. That happens.

Shaler: Heck yeah.

Stephen: Thank goodness we're out there. Those poor bars would be in big trouble.

Shaler: I mean, you're not wrong on that. Liquor stores would be in trouble, there's a lot of, you know.

Stephen: Yes!

Shaler: They just need to bring back the cigarette vending machines, and we're going to be right back in business.

Stephen: There we go. Let's start a push for people to get smoking again, that's a great idea.

Shaler: And more fried food, too. We need more fried food.

Stephen: Remember how cool you looked when you were smoking?

Stephen: You know what I'm really enjoying is the Health Savings Account. I don't know if you guys have access to that, but if you get a high deductible and a Health Savings Account, it's sort of like you've got—because what I do is I put the maximum amount into the Health Savings Account, which when you add it all up, is just about the same as one of the regular plans where you couldn't get a Health Savings Account, like a lower deductible account. But the Health Savings Account can pay for everything. So you never touch your own money, you know, when they charge you for something, you just use your Health Savings Account. The other thing that I'm not savvy enough to use yet is a Health Savings Account is the only kind of account you can get where they don't tax the money that goes into it and they don't tax it coming out. So whatever you put in there is yours forever, it doesn't go away, and it's never taxed. So if at any point in your life you need some sort of health-related thing and you've saved up money in it, it's all tax-free.

Garr: Nice. I mean, I bought my eyeglasses through my HSA.

Stephen: Yeah, it's, I mean, anything health-related, you can buy with an HSA. And the cool thing is, if you have an HSA, I just learned this recently, and your wife does not have an HSA—like, Dawn has different insurance than me, and just because hers is very, very cheap through the school she works at—so we're separate, but I can pay for her stuff through my HSA, because I've got a high-deductible account and she doesn't. Because we're both—we both file jointly, so there's no difference tax-related, so I can put her stuff on there too if I need to. If I've got enough in there.

Neal: That's great.

Shaler: Very cool.

Garr: Ryan and Julia are moving back to Orlando at the end of the month.

Neal: All right!

Stephen: Oh, great!

Garr: Finally have them back. They're back in DC and I was talking to Ryan and he said, "We're ready to come home."

Neal: Yeah.

Stephen: That's awesome. It's really cool though that they did that. I think just the fact that they went out, traveled, stayed at a different place every two weeks, was it?

Garr: About every month.

Stephen: That's really kind of cool, and then they know where they want to live.

Garr: Yeah, they're in a different part of DC right now, it's like northern DC. And he said, "Okay, now I see what everybody's talking about when they talk about DC and the bad part of DC." He said they're crazy people up here. And he said they were walking down the street and there was a mailman, you know, with the bag around his shoulder delivering mail to the different houses, and as he was delivering mail, he was shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs the whole time.

Shaler: Wow. Weird.

Garr: Yeah. Then there was some like homeless lady or something that was shadowboxing Ryan and Julia and like almost hitting them. There's all kinds of weirdness where they live now. So I think if you're like in the district, like in the middle of DC where all the National Guard is, things are really great, but you get outside of that and I don't know, cell phone radiation or something has just messed with everybody's head.

Neal: That's just regular big city stuff, though.

Stephen: Yeah, that's true. I was going to say, after the old lady finished shadowboxing and they saw the mailman going by blurring out obscenities, they're like, "I miss home."

Garr: Yeah, me too. "I want to go to Disney."

Outro Voiceover: The Williams Brothers Podcast is made possible by a grant from the Saunce Group. Do something good every chance you get. And by the Williams Foundation. The theme song is "Five Card Shuffle" by Kevin MacLeod.

Stephen: I like that Shaler brought up the Gen Z at the bars again, that's good that that came up again.

Shaler: Did I bring it up before? I don't—

Stephen: I brought it up two episodes ago that didn't air.

Shaler: Oh, did you? I didn't remember it at all, so I'm glad we had—yeah, good, excellent!

Stephen: Yeah, it was a story in The Wall Street Journal. That's probably where you remember it from, is an earlier podcast.

Neal: We're going to go back and listen and find out we're repeating the same stories over and over because we're old, you know?

Stephen: We've become grandmotherly.

Neal: It's like, isn't this episode 7? No, this is 17, but it's the same as 7 was.

Stephen: Same stuff we talked about last time. "Remember when..."

Shaler: "I have a gripe about Nextdoor, let me tell you guys."

Neal: "He's got the same gripe he had 8 months ago."

Shaler: "Different snake, different lady." [laughter]