This week on Talk of the Neighborhoods, we kick off the Thanksgiving holiday celebration with the Brothers Worrell — City Councilor Brian Worrell and State Rep. Chris Worrell — who join us to talk about their annual Turkey Drive and their distribution of over 3,500 free turkeys in the neighborhoods of Mattapan, Dorchester and Roxbury. Then on the second half, former Boston City Councilor, and Laugh Boston owner, John Tobin joins us to bring a little levity and brevity to the November election results.
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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 at bnnmedia.org. Good evening and welcome to Talk to the Neighborhoods. I'm Joe Heisler, your host, coming to you from the BNN Live Studios in Eggleston Square, where tonight we're also being simulcast on our sister radio station, WBCA-102.9 FM. Tonight, a terrific show for you as we kick off the Thanksgiving holiday season. First up tonight, we'll highlight an act of kindness, or perhaps, I should say, 3,500 acts of charitable giving and joining us the Brothers' War L, first of all, Brian Warrell, a district for city council, and his brother, Fifth Suffolk House State Rep, Christopher Warrell. Then on the second half, we'll shift gears a bit, still, all politics, as is our usual want, joining me, longtime former Boston City Councilor, John Tobin. He's also a successful businessman among his many enterprises' comedy clubs, and we'll see if he can find some levity, some humor in the results of the recent November election. All that and more tonight! [Music] [Music] [Music] In that spirit of the Thanksgiving season, we kick it off with some charitable giving and some, not just one, how about 3,500 giving, so to speak, and please have joining me. The Brothers' War L, I call them, but of course, you'll recognize them. On my far left, my far right, I should say, for those watching on camera, Brian Warrell, a district for city councilor, and Brother Chris, the State Rep from the Fifth Suffolk House District, guys, nice to have you over there. This was last week, last week was it, yeah, 3500 turkeys that you distributed to needy families, and George Chester, Matapan, Roxbury, all within your districts, right? Yeah, we started off at Matapan, right on Blue Hill Ave with the Matapan Teen Center, shout out to the young people over there, and the staff over there, and we worked our way all the way down to Garrison, Toronto, Miami District, yeah, and in between, we stopped at different public housing sites, so Franklin Field, Franklin Hill, the Gallivan Apartments, Common Square, Grove Hall, yeah, so we had about, what, 8 different stops, which was amazing, and every stop, the line wrapped around the corner, so we knew there was a need. Right. Yeah. Well, what a good deed. How did you guys ever start to come up with that? I know you. This is where history gets a little blurry, yeah, a little blurry, so I'll let the council look. Yeah. Say his apart. So we get history right. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah, so in my first year, we wanted to give back, right, and we know during this time of year, you know, one way we could give back a show up during the holidays, so everyone has a turkey, you know, Thanksgiving for us, it's full of family, there's music going on, everyone comes around, but you know, food makes part of, you know, Thanksgiving in the holiday special, so we wanted to make sure that everyone was able to have, you know, food on their table, family around, and sharing, you know, the holiday spirit. So the first year, we did it when I was a city councilor, and now, you know, this is our fourth year. How many turkeys, Jen? Talk about it. [laughter] You know what? We were trying to make a strong impact, right, so we just made sure we took care of, I think it was only one location we took at that first year. It was right on top, but I have a freezing cold. Yeah, very cold. Wow. It was about a hundred turkeys. That was more than a hundred turkeys. It was a couple, it was about to be actually like 500 turkeys that we did, yeah. Okay. And then it was like 100 turkeys. This is my history. This is my history. This is my history. I'm a good turkeys that we did. And we had like great supporters back then as we do now, a lot of local businesses that are still supporting us now. I've heard about 100 turkeys. How did you get pulled that together? How did you manage that? Yeah, we have a great company that helped us distribute, pick up the turkeys. Around-the-clock movers, they're based out of Matapan. They brought two trucks to the distributors, packed up and just rolled with us from Matapan all the way down to Roxbury. I can't imagine how much I'm going to wait now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Those turkeys. The first stop, he looked at me and said, "Chris, we got to get these turkeys off." This is like, this is a lot of pounds on this truck and I was like, okay, we got to get it. We did it. Yeah. And how did you determine who to give them to? Yeah. We'll go ahead. From the community. So, we feel like we have a gauge on what community needs. Matapan, you know, having it on the corner of Blue Hill Avenue in Hazeleton was a prime location to get the traffic coming and to get that neighborhood. We had the Gallivan apartment buildings where we played basketball where we know a whole lot of people, a whole lot of families that are in need. So we just decided to have it there, Franklin Field, Franklin Hill, so on and so on. And Grove Hall, knowing that it is the heart of my district, heart of Brian's district and this is where we overlap. It was like, this is a must. And I think Grove Hall was the biggest, the biggest distribution site. So, yeah. So we just felt like we have a grasp on community, you know, what families need and where they're at. Well, where did this spirit come from, you know, you know, and some would say, you know, of course, you're both politicians, it behooves you to kind of give back anyway. But, you know, that's a major undertaking, a major. Yeah. I was saying it's grandma, grandpa, mom and dad, they're all very generous souls. So from the very beginning, you know, we saw it inside the household, grandma, grandpa. They always leave a light on and a bed made for whoever stopped by, you know, grandma would make a plate at any time in the night. They'd basically slept in the kitchen and my dad, you know, when we used to have snow embossed it, I used to hate going out with him because he used to go all the way up the street and just shovel out everyone's sidewalk and just seeing that, you know, just to give it. Yeah. Just continue to give. And it's kind of like even with our, when we throw events, like, you know, it's about, you know, celebrating, you know, and just showing people that we can, you know, my dad always would say, you know, do it, do it, don't expect anything back, right? Right. Just do it because you want to do it. Well, that's a good, you know, model to go by or at age, whatever you want to call it, because, you know, some people want to only do it when they think they're going to get credit for it, others just show up, you know, and it's great to see him. It's a great job guys, you know, nice, nicely done. Where are you? How are you celebrating Thanksgiving? How are you? So now you've got me on record and my wife is listening, so every year, my mother-in-law, she does Thanksgiving and my parents do Christmas. So I'll be bouncing through Mother-in-law's house, cousin's house, and I have like seven eight constituents that reach down to Mother-in-law's house, and she's like, come on Bob, come on Bob. Come on Bob. Come on Bob. One of the most- And you'll really hold down your appetite process. Exactly. Wow. One of the best moments, giving out turkeys, we got to the Garrison Charter, which is my district, a lady called Miss Bee. She came and was like, I knew you were going to be here. So of course I'm going to be here. She's like, let me run home and finish baking the sweet potato pie so she goes home ten minutes later. There's a piping hot sweet potato pie. It was like, rep oral, I love you. Thank you for all the incredible work. Sweet potato pie is my favorite pie at all times and just gave it to me, and you know, she got a turkey, she hugs and kisses, and you know, she was like, great to come by. Wow. Yeah. If you're going to have more of that- Exactly. Exactly. A lot of people come and buy it, but you know, it's a family time, so it's a great occasion for a lot of people, others, it's a struggle, and you know, just been through, you know, after the pandemic and food prices higher, food shortages, just watching on the news the other day about the store shelves and in some parts of the city, you know, being virtually empty. I'm not sure why, but so I'm sure a lot of people appreciate it. Now, I know you've been bringing home the bacon in your regular duties, shall we say, including most recently, of course, the liquor licensing bill that came to, and now economic development bill apparently has passed. What's in there? Any goodies in there? Chris, that's your- Yeah, I've got $27.5 million from my district, which $15 million is going to Franco Park Zoo to build a state-of-the-art animal emergency room, animal hospital. So it's going to be accredited, it's going to be one of the best- everyone hates this because you have the transplants from New York that come to Boston, I say, by the time I'm done with the seat, I want Franco Park Zoo to be the best zoo in the nation. And everyone goes, "You must have never been in the New York Zoo." I'm saying this, I want Franco Park Zoo to be the best zoo in the nation. And given back to- we got money for local organizations to build facilities in district and so on and so on. And it's an amazing, amazing bill, a big shout-out to the Speaker of the House, Chair of Ways and Means, the leader, and the Governor, Morgan. Yeah, something. And there, and Brian, you were here earlier, talking about what a score the liquor license bill was for. Yeah. Especially for many of the neighborhoods you represent. Yeah, no, liquor license is billed, but also big news. Two, three days ago, we passed or the mayor announced $110 million for Accelerator Housing Fund, which is going to get housing production unstuck here in the city of Boston. So big shout-out to the administration, the Boston City Councilors, I'm making sure that housing production is something that is unstuck here in the city of Boston because we know we're in a housing crisis. But one of the other parts that I love about the housing bill was something that I pushed for was making sure that home ownership lived in that fund. We hear constantly that people want to own in the city that they grew up in college students. They want to pathway. Once they graduate school, get that master's in hand, they want to make Boston homes. So we want to make sure that home ownership is an opportunity and the inventory is there for Bostonians who wants stability and a pie product of that stability as well. Wow, is the council working more collaboratively these days? Yeah, we're just working out. Yeah, no, the council has always been doing good work and we could continue to be doing good work. Well, you know, I know that's not always been the case. And as chair of Ways and Means, you know, I know you've had a hand in steering some of these projects forward and Chris Silver in the State House, of course, there was a lot of consternation when the session ended that some of these major bills hadn't been taken up economic development, climate, and of course, one among many is of course the mayor and the council's proposal to adjust the tax rates and not still in play, if I understand correctly. That's still in play, yeah. And where's that? Where's that at though? Help us in? So, one thing we could talk about is the speaker said it the best after I think it was July 31st, said we never stopped working in the State House and as you see with the economic development bill, the climate bill, we've got it passed, came back in during the summer months to make sure it was fast. Was that to an informal session? It was formal. It was formal. So, two weeks, last week, yeah, before the Turkey drive-on, we came back in and passed the economic development bill, the climate bill. They took an informal vote for the Boston tax bill, I think a Republican, shot it down. Right, objective. Yeah. So, now it has to go to an informal, a formal to make sure that, you know, we pass it. Well, there was a lot of back-and-forth on that and, of course, initially, the mayor, at least, was kind of unwilling to make any changes, then came back after meeting with business groups and others to adjust it or tweak it, whatever you want to say. Do you get the sense that, ultimately, it could still pass this session? I think there's a great coalition behind it. Yeah. Well, I'm guessing most of the Boston delegation, if not all, are pushing for it as well. But time is running short, right? We won't hold — you know, it's over here sweating right now. You know, that's politics and that, you know, it's come full circle. Yeah. And it still has to go after it passes the House, it has to go to Senate and be signed by the government. Exactly. Exactly. You know. But Bill, is that it, is separate from the economic development? Yeah, so the economic development already went through. Yeah. And I know there was a hearing last week on it, so I guess we shall see. We should see. Yeah. Yeah. We should see. Well, we'll see how giving everyone is. Exactly. In the holidays. Right. And you got anything else? No. We have spirit up there. Right? But we hope it's contagious. Oh, yeah, I think that goes both ways, aren't you? Yeah. You guys, you know, are unusual, let's say brothers both serving in different capacities, different bodies, but working towards the same goals, so a lot of credit for that. You know, your family must be very proud of you. Yeah. And they probably watch it so I'm on the day. I hope they are. We've got to have some viewers. We never know here. We never know. You know, as you look now towards, and of course you just were reelected. Yes. Chris, without opposition? Without opposition. I don't know how you manage that. The blinks are worried about the blinks. Yeah. Do you beat the blinks? Yeah. There you go. I remember, not so many years ago, there were some candidates that did not beat the blanks and, well, you know, nobody mentioned it too much, but you know, you were well, but coming up on an election year, and Brian, you've revved up, you've got your brother helping you. Right. Yeah. You know, in a way to run is always to be doing the work, right? So it's always being visible, showing up for families and constituents in a real way. So just happy to, you know, continue to do the work and, you know, be on the ballot next year to continue the work. And you'll continue as the chair of Ways and Means. So, yeah. So next year? How does that work? So every term the committees will change, and it will be up to the council president to decide what committee, you know, you would be chairing. Right. I would love to continue. Right. In my role as Ways and Means, but, you know, depending on who the council president is, they will decide. Next year. Right. Because next year is not the end of the term. Right. But next year, I would be still chair. So for one more year. So for one more year. So for one more year. For one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle. So for one more budget cycle, yes. And we shall see what's happening with the city of Boston. Of course, you'll get them straightened out. Yeah, I got it. He starts veering off track at all. Yeah, so he gets to work hard to get money into our city. And when you get on a show, any favor to it? When I was running, I don't think I got anyone. Well, I don't think anybody knew who was running. That was how many people on the race. I was like, I was like 10 or later. Yeah. It was a huge field. Yeah. And no one quite knew what to expect. And now we know, right? Yeah. You know what you're getting? And if you're lucky, you get a turkey as well. Yeah. All gone. So it's all gone. Listen, where's the camera? Not called. Brian and I are running more turkeys. They're all gone. The turkeys are $3500, though. Yeah. That's an incredible number. And guys, again, congratulations on that. Thanks for coming tonight. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. You need a turkey? No. I got one lined up. I got to pick it up Tuesday. Okay. But anyway, guys, I was representing Christopher. We're out. Councillor Brian. We're out. Thank you. Nice to have you here. Guys, have a nice holiday. You too. Thanks for having us. When we come back, we'll talk more politics with the former city Councillor, John Tobin joins us. And we'll see if there's any humor to be had from the November elections. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Good evening, and welcome to this special edition of Talk of the Neighborhoods. I'm Joe Heiser, your host, coming to you from the B&N Live Studios in Eggleboro Square. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Welcome to the special edition of Talk of the Neighborhoods. I'm Joe Heiser, your host, coming to you from the B&N Live Studios in Eggleboro Square. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the other page. So, my name is David Wootenell. I'm your host, and I'm happy to be here today. Everyone, and thank you so much for joining us today on this episode of Jimmy's Decorative Moment. I'm so glad you were able to join us because I have a very special guest on the show. And it's in Roxbury, so I'm always, you know, I always want to share anything that happens in my neighborhood. In the hood. I love meeting people that are actually not just transplants to the city, although transplants are okay, you know, welcome, but that are from here. That are doing amazing things here. Came up with this concept called Counselors Connor. And what we decided to do was to invite all of the city councils to come in and talk about some of the great things about being a Bostonian, what goes into being happy with the community and neighborhood that you live in. The city hall, right outside the story, Iainella Chamber, where the city council meets. Good evening, Boston. Welcome to BNN News. It's Friday, July 7th, 2023. I'm Faitha Maffodon. Thanks for tuning in. It's been a while since we last saw you, Boston, and we've missed you. Tonight, we bring you a wealth of stories from the last few weeks from across the city. Only one astronaut can go out of the airlock. 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We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. We're going to be happy with you. Did the Democrats lose their way here? They used to be the party of the working class. You and I both grew up in working class families. I know you remember your parents and hard-working people. Did they somehow lose their way on this? Chad, when you look around you see the Republicans painting themselves as a populist party. How do we get here? I think one of the major missteps that were made. President Biden, when he was supposed to be a transitional pope. He said, "I'll do four years, stabilize the country and get ready for another generation." That didn't happen. Unfortunately, we've all seen family members, friends, you've seen that have declined unfortunately in age. Not everybody ages gracefully, unfortunately. It's just a matter of life you're blessed to live that long and things are going to happen. You could start to see that there were some things going on there. I think the party might have been slow to react to that and to whiz that Ben Choo's behind. Was it going to be common, if not, why not sooner? Who wants to be the one that pushes the president over the edge? I used to say, because speaking of comedy, I wouldn't want to be the person that replaces Johnny Carson. I want to be the one who replaces Johnny Carson. That's always tough, who's going to be the person who does it and is seen as being disloyal. Being a patriot doesn't mean you are always waving the flag. Being a patriot means sometimes you challenge the country on what it's doing because you love the country and what's best for the country and sometimes you go to speak up. That country has been built on people like that. It's time for people to stand up and speak out. There's no excuse for four years from now. They've got plenty of time. How much do you think it's kind of the economy and things are more expensive than they were? Sure, absolutely. Prices didn't come back down or if they did, they didn't come back down that much. Of course, immigration, real or imagined, certainly the costs of it were starting to be felt all over the place. But part of it, and I'm thinking of Congressman Bolton, Seth Bolton from the North Shore, waited into this and got criticized for it as well. The party had become too kind of woke to politically correct that sidetracked. Most people aren't thinking about transgender issues or whatever words you can use, identity politics, that kind of thing. We all get kind of lost on that. I think maybe just the conversations and all those things probably should have started sooner. That's probably the major criticism I have is the post-mortem. The Monday morning quarterbacks that are out there. So that conversation probably started early. Kamala and walls, they were running a two-minute offense there. It was a 70-75 day campaign. Money wasn't a factor. Two billion dollars between their individual campaigns and obviously the packs that are out there. It was a lot of money. And there's a deficit there now, a campaign debt. And so how you spend the money, how you target people, I mean, just kept on getting ads after ads. It was Sunday before the election, getting ads, shipping three dollars. And it's sort of like, is that really the priority right now? I think the messaging and how you... And it just comes down to those, because of the way it's built, you know, it comes down to those seven states. Sometimes those states vary. Again, this is going to sound like Monday morning quarterback. But I was saying it fuddled me why someone from one of the swing states wasn't picked as the VP. It just didn't make any sense to me why... It should appear over in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, kind of Whitmer or Kelly in Arizona. You know, so that just seemed a little bit strange to me. Although when you think about it and you... I mean, so many outrageous things were said by Trump during the campaign. Issues or pronouncements that not so many years ago would have been almost immediately... Yes, yes. Has it taken our whole notion of how campaigns are run or should be run or how they will be run in the future? And turned it on its head now and everybody say, "Well, just the more outrageous you get the... What, the better chance you have of winning?" Yeah, sometimes I think Trump's strategy is to say something so outrageous that you sit there in your armchair and you say, "Did he just say that?" And then the next day he says something even more outrageous. You forgot about the thing that was the day before. Yeah, you remember that thing you said Monday? It's like a party on the Thursday. It's like one thing on top of another, though. But, you know, the... Disconcerting, say the least. The targeting of voters and the mining of voters. And even, you know, even the traditional pollsters did not have a good year this year. And you look at the betting markets. And there's been article after article in the post-mortem in the Wall Street Journal and, you know, pretty reputable publications talking about the betting markets now setting the tone in terms of... They've got scientists, you know, there's a reason why, you know... Las Vegas... The house always wins. There's a reason why everything in Las Vegas is caked in gold. It's not because it's so generous, right? I mean, the house always wins and when you see the betting markets, and they have analysts and scientists just like someone who's setting a line on the Patriots game on Sunday, they look at the analytics, they look at the, you know, they have scientists there who... Data scientists and who've mined the stuff. And when you saw the betting markets a week out, you're like... And they all... Is Vegas that wrong? You know, about this. And so, it seemed like they were pretty, you know, pretty on target. So, it's an indication of how the things, the way things have been done. But what the messaging is and how your message is that... Is social media just too much? We were talking off here beforehand about social media and just... Sometimes it's just best to take a break from it. But it's hard to because it's how people socialize. It's how they find out about things going on with their friends and family. It's how they check up on people. And you just can't help but be barrage by the noise, whether it's on X or whether it's on Facebook or Instagram. It's just... It's everywhere. And even what the source of it is. I mean, let's take me off. Obviously, Fox News was, you know, that they were involved before. But after Elon Musk got involved in the Trump campaign, you know, Twitter now, X became... And a lot of people still turn to Twitter to talk about getting your news, your updates, your events, what's happening, people posting all the time. And of course, you also get a lot of benefits, remarks on there. I mean, just brutal, you know. If you go on my Facebook page, not that I'm any model of anything, but my Facebook page. I remember years ago, I used to, you know, put these lists on best area live actors of all time and best athletes from 1960 on in Boston. And I put these things on there. And then people would... Then them, they would come back at me like I had chiseled them to a tablet on the top of Mount Sinai. I'm just... I just... It's my opinion, you know. And these people coming back with these... People I'd even know with these comments. And I'm like, you know, take a step back here. And, you know, if you go on my Facebook, it's light and fluffy and kind of... People with nothing better to do than to... Well, it's become... And you know, very, very... It's become a lot of people's outlet to the world, you know, outlet to the... And, you know, especially... And it's either... it's compounded by the fact that you have so many people working from home now. Right. You have a lot of... you have a lot of seniors who are living in big old houses by themselves. You know, there are... there are lonely people there who don't have families or friends or for whatever various reasons. And social media is kind of their outlet, their window to the world and outside of the male person. It's... sometimes it's their only outlet to human connection and connectivity and it's gotten to a point. Some people use a grade, some people, you know, if I go on X or whatever, I'm a... I'm a... I'm a... I'm a... I just don't post anything because... But people get themselves in a trouble and, you know, especially late night posts and... and posts when people probably shouldn't be posting. I think there should be a breathalyze that you should have to blow into a breathalyze before you post. And it just says, no, go to bed and, you know, see you in the morning. But, you know, I guess the parts that's so hard for me to kind of understand is, you know, that... that's the... not reality, you know, in many ways. You know, what... or is it, you know, is that the reality now? What Trump says, is that what 51% of the people in the country believe? Because some of it's blatantly racist, sexist. So you take your pick. I mean, you know, it's just, you know... I think, you know, I think, you know, there is a certain... How did we deal with that? Well, I think... I think we have to, you know, in Massachusetts, there is... there is such thing as the blue bubble, you know? I mean, I think we live... we live in a state and certainly in a city that's so competitive and somebody, you know, high-tech hospitals, universities, healthcare, tourism, social services, we run the game. We have everything, you know, in your... you know, your two hours... Two hours in the mountains, an hour and a half from Cape Cod and... or Maine and New Hampshire and... and we've got a lot going on for us, but we have to realize that there's a lot of cities of comparable sizes to Boston that don't real... don't have a fraction of that. Right. They would kill for a mass general in their... in their city. Those are the same cities that are loving your new comedy clubs, right? Right. Well, listen, if it wasn't for... it wasn't for comedy, I mean, thank God. Comedy's given me, like, just another perspective on life over the past 33 years since I've been involved in it. The... the people that I've met who are comedians... they're not just comics, they're painters, they're musicians, they're artists, they're graphic artists, they're writers, they're dancers, they're poets. They're... they're part of the 40 million people, the creative economy of this country. People pay their rents and their mortgages and put their kids through school through the arts. And... but comedians especially, I find them to be the biggest truth tellers on earth. Yeah. You know, they just... they just question the absurd challenges, status quo. And a lot of it is absurd. It's absurdist, you know, but it's their window to the world. I've had people say, "Well, I didn't... I didn't agree with what he or she said." And I say, "Well, it's really not... you may not like it." I said, "But it's not really up to you to agree with that because... I mean, you could do whatever you want." But it's how they see the world through their eyes. It's their individual, how they see things and how they present it. And just have... it's grounded me in a way. You know, some people like to garden, some people like to antique. I like going to comedy shows. I like to listen to people like... How many places do you have now? How many places are you booking? We've got... you know, we've got a bunch of... we've left Boston and Boston. We've got... we just took over the child's playhouse. Blue man group is still there. Yeah. The little chuck. And so we're presenting up there. And that's where she had madness was forever. Nick's comedy stopped down the street. We're out in a bunch of places in Massachusetts. We had to get to Detroit and in Plano, Texas. So it affords you good opportunity to get out around the country. See how the other... and how are your comedians dealing with the election results? It's giving them lots of... I mean, really like it or not. It's given those of us in the media. A lot of materials work with, although it's hard to be happy about it. I have good friends who write for all the late night shows. And one in particular is telling me back when Trump was on office. He said, "Look." And he says, "We despise Trump, but can't deny. He's good for ratings." It's really a... it's a thing. We don't like this person. We can't stand that he's the president. But you look at the numbers and it's sort of like... it's just sort of... it's a real juxtaposition for a lot of... and it's a cable company and things like that. You know, Trump, as much as they don't like him, he's kind of good for business. He's good for headlines, good for conversation. And so it's a weird kind of dynamic that's out there. Although sometimes you have a hard time now watching the news at least since the election. Well, it's hard for shows to parody the news because sometimes you watch the news and you think, "Is that the parody or is that the actual news?" But I will say this about comedy too, in clubs. We actually like it when I think people want to sometimes get away from it. We don't let people have their phones on the clubs. They want to get away from it. I mean, people walk in it, never mind the political landscape and kind of the uneasiness about it all. But they just want to... you know, they get health problems, they get marital problems, they get kid problems, they get job problems. And they just want to go to comedy club and laugh about silly stuff for two hours and just check out for a little bit. Just get away from it. But people all have challenges and different things. And just to go and laugh at silly stuff is it's good for the soul, you know? So whether that's a ballet or a comedy show or a Celtics game or whatever, there's so many things to do in the city. Just to check out for a little while and just be connected to human beings, you know? And kind of... Well, congratulations on your business. I know it's been a passion of yours for a long time. Yeah, I know it's been very fortunate and been very fortunate in all aspects. I mean, being at a place like Northeastern is just like a dream come true. I never imagined being on higher ed, drove by Northeastern a million times conservatively grown up in the city. And I'm so fortunate to be there. It's such a great team. We have so many different campuses and every hour is different than the next. On the weekends is the comedy stuff. Kids are healthy. I have zero complaints, Joe. That's very good for, you know, you've been blessed. And, you know, you see, you know, the kind of, you know, Chris and Brian, I become good friends. Brian's a Northeastern graduate. They're just good people in politics for the right reason. Mayor Manino used to say all the time, you know, if this is a people business. And if you're not in this to help people in this business, then you're in the wrong business. And sometimes you turn on the TV and you say, they're not in this business to help people. They're in this business, it's self-serving, to elevate, to do whatever. It's about helping people. We've got to get back to that and realize that, you know. We'll do is all good. We've got just a mirror. So left, Chris, every year is a different election season. And we're coming up on a mayoral election year. Do you anticipate a race? Mayor Wu has... There's never not been one that I can recall. There's always, at least somebody who challenges an incumbent. You know, I mean, look at, Mayor Wu had a resounding victory a few years ago. You know, a new mayor comes in who's got a different style than a different leadership. And sometimes it's tough for people to tackle and make themselves to and get used to. But I think it's a power of incumbency in the city. It's so great. And, you know, I think there's a lot of positives there. You know, the mayor, you know, has been a personal good friend. And, you know, for my member of the council, which I have a great affinity for. For anybody who's served on their body, or most people. So I think it's going to be tough, you know, she's having a baby girl in January. Yes, I know, yeah. It's exciting. And we haven't experienced that in the city ever. So it's an exciting time and, you know, we'll see what happens. Yeah, she's fearless. John Tobin, former Boston City Councilor, successful businessman. VP, Northeastern University. John, thanks. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. I appreciate your perspective as well. You're watching "Talk to the Neighborhood" here on the Boston Neighborhood Network. We're here tonight. And, well, we'll be back two weeks from tonight. Next week is Thanksgiving holiday. Until then, for the entire staff and crew here at B&N. Thanks for watching. Have a pleasant evening. Good night. [music] [music] 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@bnnmedia.org. [BLANK_AUDIO]