Rod Fritz Interview 2024!
WBCA Podcasts
City Talk with Ken Meyer (Rod Fritz)
The following commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA or the Boston Neighborhood Network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston Neighborhood Network, 302-5 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02119. To arrange a time for your own commentary, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio@bnnmedia.org. WBCA radio is proud to present City Talk, where fascinating conversation is alive and well, with your host, Boston radio veteran Ken Meyer. Well, the political situation is over, we've had the elections, and here to analyze them and talk about it, as only he can, is former news director of WBCA radio, WRKO, and WDEI to use a cliche, one of the best in the business. In the words of the immortal words of Joe Castiglione, former Red Sox broadcaster, can you believe it? Well, I can believe it, I'm a little surprised, but I certainly can believe it, and I think a lot of people, well I know a lot of people were surprised, and it is what it is, and it's time to see what we can analyze about it. Well before we do that, and we haven't talked to you in a long time, bring us up to date on your activities and what you've been up to to stay out of trouble. Well, there is no staying out of trouble for me, I'm in trouble every day, every time I open my mouth I get in trouble, so I'll probably be in trouble during this broadcast, as a matter of fact. Yeah. Well, yeah maybe not, we'll see. But I have been doing a lot of golfing, being outside a lot over the summertime, I've done some traveling to Connecticut and Nova Scotia, also to play golf and to visit with friends. I still volunteer once a week, unless something else pops up, but usually it's once a week. At the Talking Information Center, where I do this half hour, which is called the Boston Globe Flashback, and what I do, and that's reading to the visually impaired by the way, and what I do is I pick a date in time, I go into the Boston Globe archives, and I pick a date in time, and see how the Boston Globe covered that day, and how they wrote those stories during that time. For example, I went back to, let me get my paper out here, and then I'll have some data. I went back to April 6th, 1882, and the story that was in the Boston Globe, the big story that day, was the murder of Jesse James, and how they covered it. I also did, I did several days, usually I just picked one day, but in this particular story, it covered April 11th to April 22nd, 1970, and that was Apollo 13. And Apollo 13, if you remember, is the mission that was going to the moon, but they had an explosion on their ship when they were halfway to the moon, and they had to return to Earth without landing on the moon. It was a movie as well. Yep, I remember it. But it was an interesting, interesting to see how the globe covered it over those days to keep everybody informed on what was going on. I also, then I went, other dates that I went back to recently were November 5th, 1924. I did that one November 5th because it was election the day after election day in 1924, and of course, we're talking about the election in 2024 year. That was when Calvin Coolidge was elected president. Calvin Coolidge, of course, Massachusetts, former governor. But anyway, you know, so that's what I do. I go back and find a date, and I try to pick a date where something significant happened, so you can see how they covered that particular story back then. It's very interesting, especially a lot of the dates that I, well, most of the dates are before internet and before cell phones and stuff. Sometimes it's before television, and sometimes, as in the case of the murder of Jesse James, it's before radio and television. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So it's quite interesting, and, you know, so I do that for half an hour at the Talking Information Center, and my most recent one, I went back to World War II, February, I just picked this date out of the air, February 23, 1943, and it was all about the war in Europe and in North Africa, and also the sinking of two ships in the North Atlantic where over 800 people were killed, so, and I just happened to pick that date, and I wanted to see what happened, and so that's what happened on that particular day. So that's been keeping me busy. You know, you're pretty much up to date, other than that, I lead a boring life, you know? Yeah. Next time, look up, I think the date is May 5, 1961, and if I'm not mistaken, it's the day that Alan Shepard went into space. I'm writing it down, 1951, no, 1961, 1961, and it's funny too, because being in communications, I often think of what coverage would have been like during the war if we had cell phones. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine? Or can you imagine what it would have been like with social media during World War II? Exactly. Yeah. But let's jump ahead a little bit. When did you start to follow, if at all, this recent campaign with Harris and our, I can't bear to say his name, our new president? Yeah, the ex-president who will be is now our president-elect Trump. Well, well, Ken, you couldn't help but follow it for the past, how many months? Several. The past year, actually. So you know, it's been very interesting because, you know, you had Joe Biden who said he was going to run and did, as a matter of fact, and won all the primaries, and then picked Kamala Harris as his running mate, and Trump picked JD Vance to be his running mate. And then of course, so that's how long I've been following it. I mean, everybody's had to follow it. Likewise, people in Massachusetts had to follow the New Hampshire gubernatorial race because of all the commercials that were on television during that time. Should Biden have dropped out? Well, I think the Democrats are taking a look at that now, to be honest with you. He might have done better. The reason, you know, he was forced out, let's face it, you know, I mean, he didn't want to leave. He was forced out by the Democratic higher ups, the Democratic Party itself. And my own personal opinion is that if he had stayed in the race, he would have done better, much better in a second debate. We all know that the first debate was a debacle for him. And that's what set the wheels in motion to replace him as the candidate. He didn't have to step down. He was forced to step down. I don't know what they said to him to make him step down, but it must have been something pretty bad that he had in his closet that he didn't want out. And they then said we need to have Kamala Harris as the candidate. But your question is, should he have dropped out? You know, I don't, let me put it to you this way. I don't think that they should have picked who they picked to replace him. I think they should have opened it up to some kind of an election, whether it be a national primary or something where you have several candidates who want to be the Democratic nominee be in the running. But they went right to her instead and bypassed all of that. And I don't think that was the right way to do it, and I think it backfired for him. But if he had stayed in the race and he had done well in a second debate, I think this race wouldn't have been a lot closer, Ken, I really think it would have been, he might have won. But the other thing I keep thinking of in my head is that Trump is a convicted felon. He's had criminal charges brought up against him, and he's a convicted felon. And yet he's president of the United States. Yes, but there's nothing in the Constitution that says a convicted felon cannot be president of the United States if he's elected by the people. It just seems, if you had been involved in the campaign, how would you have maybe run things differently for Harris? What did Harris do wrong that caused her to lose the selection? I think one of the first things that she did wrong was she didn't talk to the media or answer any questions for the first month and a half after she was named the nominee. So I think that hurt her in getting her message out faster. I don't know what she was afraid of, but I certainly would have had her, I would have had her hold a news conference the very first day to talk about what she was going to do and what she's learned over the last four years under the Biden administration, whether she would make any changes in the Biden administration decisions that were made over the last four years and things that she would be doing. I think, you know, you can only use celebrities so much in a campaign to say that this is the person. I mean, frankly, can I don't care who George Clooney votes for? I don't care who Barbara Streisand votes for. I don't care who you vote for. I don't care who my wife votes for. I like care about who I vote for. And I don't need someone telling me who was an actor, a singer, a football player, a baseball athlete telling me who I should vote for because they are going to vote for that person. I mean, and I think she used the celebrities way too much. I don't think she should have done that. I don't think she talked about the issues enough. And we all know what the issues are. The number one issue is the economy and inflation and how much groceries have gone up, gasoline has gone up, the price of everything has gone up, interest rates were over 7% at one time. People couldn't buy a house and you need to answer those questions. How are you going to fix that Trump, on the other hand, explained how he would fix that. And, you know, so those are one of the first things that I would have done if I had anything to do with the Harris campaign. Will Trump make a better president now than he did before? I don't know, I can't see into the crystal ball of the future, and I don't think anyone can. I do think that it's not going to be any worse than it was during the first four years of Donald Trump. What do you think he should concentrate on in the next four years? We already know what he's going to concentrate on. He's already said he's going to start deporting the illegal aliens, and I think they're going to start with those with criminal backgrounds first. I think that was his first thing that he wants to do when he first takes office to get that started in motion. I also think he's going to open up the pipeline again, and that's going to bring our gas prices to you to remember back when when he was president, we had well, the pipeline wasn't working, but it was under construction. But the we were energy self sufficient at the end of his term. We didn't really rely that much on foreign oil. And then when the Biden administration took over on day one, he passed an executive order stopping the pipeline, and we became dependent again on foreign oil and gas prices shot up as we know, they're coming down again now. We'll see what happens as we get going here. I think those are the those are the two things that I think he's going to do right away. I really don't know how he's going to lower inflation any more than it is already lowered. It was really bad, as you know, a year and a year and a half ago, when it was, what was it? 9% something like that, Ken? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And it's now down around three and a half or four, or maybe it's closer to two, I have them in paying too. But all I know is this. When I go to the grocery store, I'm still spending a lot more than I used to spend. I don't know how you're going to lower that, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. How do you think the media did in covering these two characters? Well, I think the mainstream media did a poor job of it. I think the mainstream media has egg on their face because they they they they they, they kowtow to the Harris campaign. They never pressured her to answer questions in the first month and a half. They even when they even when they did have questions for her, they were always softball questions. And if she didn't answer a question, they never pressed her to answer a question. And yet for Trump, they always found something bad about Trump to report on every day. And, and I just don't think they were very fair in their coverage of the two candidates. I really think they have egg on their face. And I think it's going to continue in this neck over these next four years. I think they're going to look at everything negative that he that they can come up with regarding to the Trump and the future Trump administration will see, but I think that's what they're going to do. The bottom line is this, after these next four years, we don't have to deal with him anymore at all. Yeah. He can't run again after these next four years. I mean, it probably would have been a blessing in disguise, Ken, if he had won in 2020, because then we'd be done with him now. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, you can't help but think stormy Daniels. I never heard of anything like this in previous campaigns that presidents ran or were involved in. And he still managed to win if there had been a question at all in some of these other issues. He wouldn't have, he wouldn't have been involved, I don't think. No, well, you're right. I mean, let's, let's face it, the guy doesn't have the best morals in the world. There's no doubt about it. But, you know, you look back at his first four years, you know, he accomplished quite a bit to get this country back on the right track. There were no wars going on. I mean, Afghanistan was still going on, but we were slowly getting out of Afghanistan. But there was no war in Ukraine. There was no war in Gaza when, when Trump was in office. And he would have eventually ended the war in Afghanistan a lot differently than the way the Biden administration ended that war, which I still think is a disgrace. But that's just my personal opinion on that one. But yeah, the stormy Daniels thing, here's the thing, you know, you talk about presidents and their affairs and the things that they did, you know, we forget that when John F. Kennedy was president, he was having affairs all over the place. One of the more popular ones, of course, was with Marilyn Monroe. And it was kept secret by the media. The media didn't report on it until after, well, many years afterwards, I believe, before that came out. And you know, you got to, and FDR had his, had his, had his own affairs. Dwight Eisenhower had his, had his own affairs, but they, but it was kept secret. And by the media, even though they knew it, they kept it secret. In this case, times have changed. I mean, you can't walk down the street without somebody having a camera on you or reporting something on social media. And there is nothing that is secret. And that's the thing that gets me about some of the politicians. How can they be so stupid to think that they're going to get away with something when everybody is watching them and, and they're going to, and they're going to report on it or tell on it. Yeah, so yeah, you're right, the Stormy Daniels thing, you know, hey, 50 years ago, if a president had had an affair and it had come out before the election, he would have been toast. He never would have got elected. But again, times have changed and, and, and here you go. What, what do you foresee politically in the next four years? And how would you compare this campaign to others that have previously been run? Well, let me take the first, let me take, let me, let me try to answer the last part of your question first on how I think this campaign was run. I said recently, I've never seen so much name calling since I was in third grade. I mean, seriously, I mean, he's a fascist, he's Hitler, he's a felon. Well, felon, he is a felon. That's true. But you know what, Ken, we've had a felon in the Massachusetts Statehouse too at one time. So, don't forget about that and this is a democratic state, democratic controlled state and there was not a whole lot that was done about that was there. So the name calling and the negativity was over the top, in my opinion. And if they hadn't done that, I mean, and she, and she did the same thing and he did the same thing, you know, they both were, well, you know, what's that one joke? I know you are, but what about me? I know you are, but what am I? I know you are, but what am I? I know I am, but what do you, you know, that comedy bit, I think I got it wrong, but something like that. And I think if they had stopped the name calling and gotten into the issues, you know, I think she would have had a better chance of winning. You know, if you look, if you look at the places where she came out on top, it was all of the major blue cities, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and where did, where did Trump win? Trump won down south and he won in all of the rural areas of those states. So what does that tell you that tells you that the people were hurting and they needed a change. And even though he's a convicted felon, they remember how good things were when he was president from 2016 to 2020 and the price of gasoline and the price of bread and the price of eggs and we were energy independent and our military was strong and we had no worries about being attacked and there were no wars that broke out. So I think that's what people remembered and they're hoping, I think, they're hoping that that's what's going to happen again over these next four years, but we didn't get that from the Harris campaign. All we got is he's unfit to be president, he's unqualified to be president, well, he's not unqualified to be president because he was already president once. You got Nancy Pelosi saying, don't ever let this man back in the White House again. So that's the campaign that I think they should have done differently as compared to campaigns in the past campaigns in the past dealt with issues. They dealt with, how am I going to how am I going to do my job to help you and to keep the country strong and to keep the country as one of the greatest powers in the world. And the second party your question was something about what what's going to happen four years from now. Is that what you asked? Yeah, well, I don't know what's going to happen four years from now. I'll tell you this, I think we're going to know exactly what's going on within the what after he is sworn in in January, within the next 18 months, year and a half, we're going to know what direction this country's going at. And I think it's going to take that long to figure they might even be faster. But I think that's that we're going to know that Jack Smith. Yeah, well, you think he's going to resign before Trump gets an office? I don't know. Let me check, let me check on that, Jack Smith, I'm not sure. I don't think he's good. He's not going to resign, but he I don't think he's going to pursue the January 6th case. I think that will be dropped. Yeah, it seems hard to believe that, I mean, every time I think about that and people that lost their lives and the fact that Trump sat in the Capitol and just watched it on the, you know, in the dining room, it bothers me a great deal. Well, I think it bothers a lot of people and it bothers me too. I know when I saw it, when it was happening, I was saying, what the heck is going on? What has happened to our country when we're doing this? And yeah, I do think he did a lot of wrong things during that day. I mean, he wasn't there. He didn't tell them to go and do it, he didn't, but he didn't stop them from doing it either. Although, if you read some of the stuff that was done during the committee when they were investigating this. He did ask for more national guard troops and stuff that was denied for protection during that day. And we don't know what would have happened had that, those extra national guard troops been allowed to be there. So we don't know. But no, I agree with you. I mean, he should have been on TV immediately saying, get the hell out of there. Stop it. Stop with the hell. You know, there's other ways to take control, you know, I mean, we lost, well, of course, he never admitted that he lost, right? Right. So, you know, he still felt that he won, but you know, that was not a good time. But hey, Ken, people have a short memory, you know, especially in politics. Apparently so. Yeah. For sure. They really do. Okay, if you had a chance to sit down and go one-on-one with good old Donzi, what would you tell him? I would tell him to listen to his advisors more. And I would tell him to stay off of social media unless it goes through one of his spokespeople. Very simple. And that would be all. That would be basically it. Yeah, because yeah, pretty much, I mean, I don't know what he's going to be doing these next four years behind the scenes talking with world leaders and other things. But I mean, a lot of people get a, you know, a bad taste in their mouth from the things that he says when he says it, well, if he keeps his mouth shut and just does his job, I think he would be liked a lot more, but he doesn't, you know? And that irritates me. I wish he would keep his mouth shut. And I wish he would listen to his advisors who tell him that that's not the way to do it. You need to do it this way and let's discuss it. And he's one of these guys where, no, we're going to do it my way or the highway. And I don't think that's the right way to do it. That's what made Ronald Reagan so great, Ken. You know, he hired people in his administration who were smarter than him and he listened to them and he let them do their job. And he didn't criticize them. He was very successful in hiring people that he knew could do the job better than him. Up on the other hand, hires people who he thinks he's doing a better job than them. And in some cases, he's probably right, but in other cases, not so. So it's going to be very interesting. I mean, recently, he just named the first female chief of staff ever to be in the White House. And that's going to be interesting to see how she handles him and how she handles things as well. Yeah, they people were praising that. I saw that yesterday when it had happened and they were kudos for her and everything else. So hopefully maybe she is smarter than he is and he will listen to her. Right. And you know what I just found out? I got to look this up real quick, but I because I don't remember what her what her real name is. Okay. For even for God, her real name, Susie Wiles is that's it? Yeah. Yeah. She is the daughter of Pat Summerall. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. I just found that out today. No kidding. God was Pat Summerall. Wow. God bless Pat Summerall. Yeah. So, I mean, already he's. You know, all this talk about how Trump hates women, he doesn't hate women. Does he treat them differently? Yeah. Does the, you know, I mean, can the Democrats have done it again? And what they did was they shot themselves in the foot again, John Kerry would be would have been president if he hadn't shot himself in the foot. And God forbid he was president because his vice president was a sleaze bag. If you recall, his wife had cancer, I can't remember his name, thank God, but his wife had cancer and he was having an affair and had a baby with it. But so I'm kind of glad that Kerry never made it in there, but, but he clearly was the front runner at that time and blew it at the last couple of weeks. And Dukakis blew it when he was running. They all seem to find a way to shoot themselves in the foot. In this particular race with Harris and Trump, it wasn't Harris that shot herself in the foot. It was the Democratic Party, the entire party who shot themselves in the foot. I would have, I said to my wife a few months ago, I said, I would much rather see a race between Nikki Haley and Gavin Newsom. I would not see that race. Mm. Nikki, boy, that would have been interesting. Of course it would. And where's the negativity there? I don't think there isn't any. I guarantee you though that the Democrats would have come up and said, Nikki Haley, isn't she part Indian? Why is she using the name Nikki? Why doesn't she use a real name? You know, and this is where they go down the wrong road. Just talk about the issues for crying out loud. People don't care whose name is what. What they care about is I'm going to the store today. Last week, bread was 99 cents today. It's $1.49. Yeah. All of the recent presidents, I gather that you're a big fan of Ronald Reagan and B, there was nobody better. Well, I'm a big fan for sure. There may have been others that were better, but I may not have been alive at the time. I do think I'm trying to, I think Kennedy was an excellent president, John F. Kennedy, I think was an excellent president, he was a Democrat. I think Lyndon Johnson got screwed because I think he had some good programs that he brought forth, civil rights was one of them, of course, but the Vietnam War dragged him down. I also think that Eisenhower was darn good Truman was great. I'm going back now, I don't know, I mean, I don't know how good Truman was, but from what I read, he was good. And now we go back even further, I wasn't alive, I mean, a lot of people are critical and criticize Herbert Hoover and they criticized, they even criticized Calvin Coolidge. They talk about Woodrow Wilson, who they think really wasn't running the White House and that his wife was actually running the White House because I guess he had had a stroke at one time while he was in the White House. So of all of the recent presidents, yeah, I'm a fan of Ronald Reagan, but I also think that I think that George Bush, the second George Bush was a pretty good president and the rest of them, in my opinion, were kind of average. And they did the job and they were okay and they didn't screw things up, put it that way. Would you like to be in Washington for about six months right now? Yeah, I would. I would like to be in Washington and I'd like to be on covering the White House over the next six months. That would be a lot of fun, that would be something interesting in my career. Yeah, I'll bet you and Martha Wright had it very well. You got a job for me there? I wish I did. Yeah, that would be I did, but I mean, I'm the kind of guy who would ask questions that other people don't ask that are questions that people want to know about. I'm not going to go into this big debate about this and that and why did you pick this person to be on the $20 bill and why don't you, why is this happening? I would ask things like, I mean, I can remember in Boston years and years ago, this goes back a long time now, Ken, but you were working in Boston at the time as well. I forget, I think I was working at WROR FM at the time and there was a there was about to be a teacher's striker that was a problem with the teachers and everybody was covering the school committee, all of the TV stations with our cover and they're all asking questions like, well, how much do the teachers want and what is the stumbling block and why can't we talk about the pensions and why can't we do this and I stood up and they go, yes, what's your question? I said, is there going to be school tomorrow? Yeah. I mean, because that's what people want to know, we want to know it's going to be school tomorrow. Yeah. And, and they all stopped and they all went, geez, what a great question. Yes, there's going to be school tomorrow. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Yes. You know, I would, if I were in Washington now, I really think that if I had a chance to ask Joe Biden, I would, I would literally ask him and I would, I would try to get an answer. I don't think he would give it to me, but I would say, why did you drop out? Because no one has asked him that question. Yeah. Why did you drop out? Why did you decide after winning all of those primaries that you were not the candidate? You could, you could be the Sam Donaldson of the 21st century. Yeah, I could be for about six months. So what's, what's, what's next in line in your, in your future? Are you still involved with the Jean Hartigan and the whole China business? Well, I'm involved with the Jean Hartigan, but not with the China business. I'm involved with a thing that we have going on in Cody Waugh West Africa, the Ivory Coast, where we, it's, it's a, it's a nonprofit and it's called Aframed Network dot org, Aframed Network dot org. And what we're doing is bringing healthcare to the rural areas of Cody Waugh, which is the old Ivory Coast, and it's on the West coast of Africa. And there are a lot of rural areas there where people actually have no access to any kind of healthcare, no doctors, no nurses, malnutrition. And we want to bring healthcare to those people because that country in Africa is one of the more democratic and one of the more successful economies in Africa as well. But the people who are out in the rural areas, I mean, you see rural Africa, I mean, I'm telling you, they're living in huts and there's no running water, there's no, there's no sewers, there's, there's the food is hard to come by and I, and again, there's no healthcare. If they get really, really sick, they have to find a way to get to a major city. They don't have cars. So, so we're, we're trying to bring healthcare to those who need it in Cody Waugh, through Aframed Network dot org, that's, that's what I'm working with Mr. Hardigan on. I have nothing to do with him in China. And I don't want to have anything to do with him in China. Thank you very much. Now, just out of curiosity, yeah, who do you like to watch on the news at night locally or nationally? I'll take it both ways. Well, locally, I like to watch WCVB channel five. I think they do an excellent job. I like their weather. I like their sports and I like their news people and I like their reporters. And I think they're very fair. On a national level, I usually watch ABC. I used to watch CBS because I used to work for CBS, as you know. And I used to watch CBS, but there, I don't think they're as good as they used to be. I, I also think that they, they're, they're not quite as middle of the road as they used to be. Not to say that ABC is, I don't think they're, I don't think any of them are, are, I hate to say fair and balanced, but I don't think any of them are. I think all of them have leaned towards the left and have given a liberal slant to the stories that they covered that have to do with politics. But when it comes to hardcore news like fires in Los Angeles, hurricanes and a bad accidents and things like that, I think that ABC does a better job than the others than NBC and CBS. So that's why I watch ABC on a cable outlet on the cable outlet. I watch Fox because I used to work for Fox and I didn't work for Fox News TV. I worked for Fox radio, but, but indeed we were down the middle. We, people say that, well, on, on cable, they're definitely conservative leaning. No doubt about it. And I also watch CNN because that way I can take, I watch it CNN, I watch Fox. I can now see what this person, this group is saying. This news organization is, I put news organization in quotes. This news organization and this news organization is saying in quotes and I can then come to my own opinion by not really, you know, listening to both of them. And I'm not going to just, I'm not going to just watch Fox and I'm not just going to watch CNN, I want to watch both because, as you know, they're, they're, you know, Fox is conservative, CNN is more liberal and MSNBC is off the hook. Yeah, they're, but, you know, I mean, and here's the, here's another thing, Ken, and you didn't ask me about this. So I'm going to, I'm going to volunteer it. Okay. And what the heck is up with these late night TV shows on ABC and CNBC? What's up with the Jimmy Kimmel show? What's, what's up with the tonight show? Why do they have to be so political? You know, I can't tell you the last time I watched the tonight show. Yeah, I, they're all, you know, Jimmy Kimmel was crying after the election. Come on. Give me a break. You know, you're an entertainer. You're not Walter Cronkite, you know, you're not Dan Rather, you know, you know, you know, you know, I mean, come on, get over it and, and, and stop trying to tell the audience what they should do, entertain the audience for crying out loud. There is no late night entertainment shows anymore. And that irritates me, you know, when Johnny Carson was on and did the tonight show and the other shows that tried to compete against him, they were entertainment shows. Johnny Carson didn't talk about politics. You didn't know what his politics was. He had politicians on, but he didn't talk about politics. He was an entertainment show. And that's what they should do. I'm just saying, okay, now my rant is over. You know what? I agree with you a hundred percent. I used to stay up late at night to watch Johnny Carson. Right. I went to Chateau de Vil in Framingham to see Johnny Carson. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had seats right down in front, as a matter of fact. And so Johnny and I became pals and a man that's good. That's good. I went to the Chateau de Vil in Framingham. Actually before it was before it was the Chateau de Vil. It was the Caesar's Monticello. I remember that. It was Caesar's Monticello and it took over for Blenstrom's. Yeah, Blenstrom's used to be where all of the stars came and performed in the 40s and 50s in Boston. Then it burned down, Caesar's Monticello. I used to go over, and I was in high school, I'd go over and watch Robert Goulet and Gordon McCray and his wife, Sheila. Sheila, yeah. And I watched them and I wasn't even allowed to be in there because I wasn't of age. But I would sneak in because I lived real close to this place. And yeah, so that was a lot of fun. Those were the days. Yep. I used to go. I had Tom Jones. I saw out there. Yeah, me too. I saw you. I saw Ricky Nelson at the Chateau de Vil. Oh, wow. Well, I never did. I think I think I saw Jimmy Durante there too at one point. Oh, I bet that would have been fantastic. Yeah, it was. It was great to have dinner and, you know, the orchestra and you'd see people like Jerry Ville and Frankie Lane, and those were great times. I missed those. Well, I remember when I saw Tom Jones, the women were throwing their underpants up on stage. Yeah, I remember that too. And when I saw Ricky Nelson, it was towards the end before he tragically died in that plane crash. And you can tell that he was doing something. He was an hour and 20 minutes late for his show. Oh, wow. And when he did come on, after his first two songs, his shirt was soaking wet from his perspiration. So he, I mean, don't get me wrong, it was, it was, it was Ricky Nelson. I mean, you all saw the songs that he did. They were great. They were, they were terrific. And he did do the 50s stuff. And he did do his Stone Canyon thing, you know, the garden party. Yeah. But it was, it was kind of sad, you know, afterwards, when, when he died in the plane crash and went, you know, he was probably as a kite when he was out in Framingham and he out. Yeah. He was a great, no, he was a great performer. We could, we could, we could sit here and talk about others for hours and hours at a time. Oh, for sure. And as always, it's, it's great having you on. I enjoy your political insights. I enjoy your friendship. And I even enjoy you. Well, likewise, can I enjoy you, will you and I have been friends for a very long time? And I know we will be friends for a very long time to come. And I appreciate you having me on and trying to get me to give my opinion of certain things. But you know, I tried to, you know, not answer your questions as much as possible. Listen, listen, you are the best, you and Jean are two good guys that I love dearly. I almost wish we were all back working together again. Yeah, we should so too. But, you know, always remember that I know that you like me better than Jean. I'll be sure and, I'll be sure and tell them that. Listen, give, give my love to Carolyn as always and good luck to you and whatever. I love the Terry. I will do that. If you ever get an urge when you want to go on the air and can't contain yourself, give me a call. I just may do that the next time that the Red Sox win the World Series, I hope, I will be dead by then. I hope we'll be alive by then. Yeah, I mean, I hope Alex Carr will be manager of the year. Yeah. Well, you never know. Could be happening next year. We'll see. Anything's possible. Absolutely. Look, look, look who won the election. Anything is possible. Yeah. Anything is possible. Yeah. Like you like you started this program, but can you believe it? Yeah, I'm going to miss him. Yeah, me too. So Joe's a good guy. I've known him almost since he came to Boston, as a matter of fact, he and I have been friends for that long. Listen, you take care of yourself. Say hi to David Muir and, well, you know, he worked at Channel 5. That's right. Yes. Channel 5 before he went to the big time. So anyway, you take care of yourself, give my love to the world and anybody else and we'll talk soon. You betcha. Have a great week. You've got it. You too. And that'll do it for another edition of City Talk. Thanks for listening to another great conversation with Ken Meyer and friends. You can contact Ken by email. He addresses KJ Meyer 7 at gmail.com. That's KJ-M-E-Y-E-R 7 at gmail.com. Tune in next time for more conversation with Ken Meyer on City Talk. The preceding commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA or the Boston Neighborhood Network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston Neighborhood Network, 302-5 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02119. To arrange a time for your own commentary, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio at bnnmedia.org. [BLANK_AUDIO]