Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: Oh, I completely agree with you on that one, Nicole.
Speaker 2: Of course, we completely agree on most things. Anyway. My
Speaker 2: name is Dan Ray and the host of Nightside, heard
Speaker 2: every Monday through Friday night from eight until midnight right
Speaker 2: here on WBZ Boston's News Radio. You can listen to
Speaker 2: us over the air what we call terrestrial radio, through
Speaker 2: your car or your radio at home, or you can
Speaker 2: download the iHeartRadio app and listen to us anywhere in
Speaker 2: the world. We have listeners around the world, believe it
Speaker 2: or not, and we have lots of listeners across America.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes these are people who have found us inadvertently or
Speaker 2: have heard about us, or maybe they are transplants from
Speaker 2: Boston who have moved somewhere else. We have a lot
Speaker 2: of listeners in Canada, we have some listeners in Mexico.
Speaker 2: So it is a big program and I'm delighted to
Speaker 2: be about just about to start year eighteen doing this program.
Speaker 2: We're wrapping up in the next month or so. Nightside
Speaker 2: with Dan Ray officially officially unofficially went on the air
Speaker 2: in May of two thousand and seven, but it became
Speaker 2: nightside on October first, two thousand and seven, so we
Speaker 2: count that as sort of the birthday. We will start
Speaker 2: year eighteen on October first, in the midst of our
Speaker 2: presidential campaign, so we have lots to accomplish. Tonight. We
Speaker 2: will talk at nine o'clock tonight. We're talking so much
Speaker 2: politics lately. We'll talk a little bit tonight, beginning at
Speaker 2: nine o'clock about the continuing saga of the Boston Bomber,
Speaker 2: the one surviving member of that, the two brothers we
Speaker 2: don't mention their names, Boston Bomber two. He's now thirty
Speaker 2: one years old. It's been over eleven years, and he's
Speaker 2: still lingering on death row at super Max in Colorado.
Speaker 2: And now he will get to all of that at
Speaker 2: nine o'clock. And of course later on tonight, we will
Speaker 2: hear the presidentidential acceptance, the acceptance of the Democratic nomination
Speaker 2: by Vice President Kamala Harris. Her speech in its entirety,
Speaker 2: and depending upon what time she starts at what time
Speaker 2: she ends, you'll have an opportunity to talk about that
Speaker 2: speech either before or after. But those times are a
Speaker 2: little fluid, so you have to stick with us. But
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what is not fluid. We have four
Speaker 2: great guests coming up this hour, and we're going to
Speaker 2: start off by talking about September, which, amongst other things,
Speaker 2: is National Suicide Prevention Month. Suicide in the US reached
Speaker 2: a record high in twenty twenty two, and yet the
Speaker 2: toll was exceeded in twenty twenty three when a half
Speaker 2: a million Americans lost their lives to suicide. Delighted to
Speaker 2: welcome to our program. Nasa Yasine, founder of a holistic
Speaker 2: medical health app called Soul sol Nasa, thanks for joining
Speaker 2: us tonight. What is going on in our country that
Speaker 2: so many people are being so desper find themselves so
Speaker 2: desperate that they take their own lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, first, Dan, thank you so much for having
Speaker 3: me on the program. And happy early eighteenth birthday to
Speaker 3: your program. That's quite it's amazing a.
Speaker 2: While, thank you very much. I try to introduce the
Speaker 2: program with a little bit of different information every night,
Speaker 2: so you had to listen to my garments that I
Speaker 2: apologize for that, but I want to talk about suicide.
Speaker 2: I worked as a television reporter, and I remember back
Speaker 2: on the thirty one years that I worked as a
Speaker 2: television reporter here in Boston suicides would never reported. I
Speaker 2: also served on the board of directors of the Samaritans
Speaker 2: here in Boston for fifteen years, which is an anti
Speaker 2: suicide organization, as headed at that point by a woman
Speaker 2: named Monica Dickens, who was the granddaughter of the great
Speaker 2: writer Charles Dickens. So I know a little bit about this,
Speaker 2: But I know there are suicide hotlines. I know everyone's
Speaker 2: working hard, But what's the impetus for this increase in suicides?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's so tragic, right because when you
Speaker 3: take a step back and you look at you know,
Speaker 3: our species, our country, and our species humanity as a whole.
Speaker 3: You know, we are living longer than we've ever lived.
Speaker 3: We are wealthier than we've ever been.
Speaker 4: As a species.
Speaker 3: We are more powerful than we've ever been as a species.
Speaker 3: We have these smartphones and AI and I mean, if
Speaker 3: we're to go back one hundred years, people would think
Speaker 3: that we're handed off from Lord of the Rings or something, right,
Speaker 3: and so on the surface, it looks like everything's just
Speaker 3: going swimmingly, and yet we're killing ourselves at a rate
Speaker 3: that we never have in the entire history of our species. So,
Speaker 3: you know, today more people die from suicide than die
Speaker 3: from homicide. That's never happened in the history of humanity,
Speaker 3: and so why is this happening.
Speaker 5: A good way to think about.
Speaker 3: This is imagine there's a coin that's made from two ingredients,
Speaker 3: purpose and belonging. Okay, the coin has two sides. From
Speaker 3: a scientific perspective, we know that depression and anxiety, addiction,
Speaker 3: thoughts of suicide come from lacking a sense of purpose
Speaker 3: and belonging. And on the flip side, we also know
Speaker 3: that happiness and contentment comes from when you feel purposeful
Speaker 3: and when you feel like you belong And so the
Speaker 3: real key is to help people find a sense of
Speaker 3: purpose and belonging. And today it's very hard to do
Speaker 3: that because we're so distracted on social media. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you look at what's happening with teens. I'm the
Speaker 3: father of two teams, and they have to be on
Speaker 3: some social media in order to be part of you know,
Speaker 3: the jokes and you know the you know, be part
Speaker 3: of the crowd that they hang out with. But while
Speaker 3: we're there, the only messages that they're being delivered are,
Speaker 3: oh hey, uh, you think you look good today, Well,
Speaker 3: look at this other person who's like an influencer and
Speaker 3: a model. You think you're you know, you learn something
Speaker 3: interesting last week, Well here's this other person who learned
Speaker 3: this dance that you can't do or this trick that
Speaker 3: you can't do.
Speaker 2: So social media sounds to me like so social. And
Speaker 2: I agree with you that social media has its benefits,
Speaker 2: but it's its liabilities are extraordinary.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you know, it makes it, It makes it. It's ironic,
Speaker 3: right because you know, we're connected to more people than we.
Speaker 4: Ever have been, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, you look at the number of followers you have,
Speaker 3: or the number of connections you have on Instagram or
Speaker 3: whatever case may be. It looks like you're connected to
Speaker 3: a lot of people, but the quality of those connections
Speaker 3: is much poorer than normal relationships have been throughout the
Speaker 3: history of our spaces.
Speaker 4: We used to live in.
Speaker 3: Towns and communities where you'd actually cost side and talk
Speaker 3: to people and actually have real conversations with about that.
Speaker 2: How about that for concept? Okay, so we can't give
Speaker 2: it in Facebook, we can't give it TikTok LinkedIn Instagram,
Speaker 2: all of these things. What what what can we do? What?
Speaker 2: Yeh is the advice to say to parents and you're
Speaker 2: a parent, of teenagers. I a few years ago had
Speaker 2: two teenagers, but they now have grown up and they're
Speaker 2: out of the the nest and they're they're flying around
Speaker 2: the country on their own, doing their thing. They certainly
Speaker 2: have a purpose at this point, and I hope they
Speaker 2: have a sense of belonging. What can parents do, I mean,
Speaker 2: they can't shut the social media off teenagers or the
Speaker 2: kids will who knows what they do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think the first step is, you know,
Speaker 3: and my colleague at Soul Doctor, Lisa Miller, she wrote
Speaker 3: an entire book about this called The Spiritual Child, and
Speaker 3: it's a New York Times bestseller. I highly recommend you, know,
Speaker 3: you or your listeners check out that book. It's a
Speaker 3: fantastic book that talks specifically about this. But really it
Speaker 3: boils down to a couple of things. Number one is,
Speaker 3: you know, stop making your child feel like you only
Speaker 3: value them for their accomplishments. Good grades are great, and
Speaker 3: the fact that they're on the soccer team or whatever
Speaker 3: is great, you know, but when they get home from school,
Speaker 3: you know, you shouldn't have a conversation like what you
Speaker 3: learned today, like give me your report card basically for
Speaker 3: the day. Just be happy to see them right. Make
Speaker 3: it clear that you value them, not their accomplishments.
Speaker 4: Number one.
Speaker 3: Number two, make it clear that it's okay to talk
Speaker 3: about things like feeling sad or feeling left out or
Speaker 3: feeling rudderless. These are normal experiences to talk about in
Speaker 3: a house, in a household and in a family. And
Speaker 3: what you can do, practically speaking, to help develop a
Speaker 3: greater sense of purpose and belonging for yourself or for
Speaker 3: your kids is you know, whenever you're able to align
Speaker 3: your daily activities with your own sense of greater good,
Speaker 3: you inherently start to develop a greater sense of purpose.
Speaker 3: So the first question is to ask yourself what am
Speaker 3: I inspired by? What things make me happy?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Am I happy reading books? Or am I happy walking
Speaker 3: outside in nature? Am I happy doing exercise? Am I
Speaker 3: happy listening to music? There's no wrong answers. You know,
Speaker 3: am I inspired by you know, ancient philosophy? I'm inspired by,
Speaker 3: you know, religion of some sort? Am I inspired by
Speaker 3: just you know, human rights? Or am I inspired by
Speaker 3: feeling connected to you know, to to other people? Whatever
Speaker 3: your sense of greater good is and whatever.
Speaker 2: These I don't mean to interrupt, But I have to
Speaker 2: have to interrupt. This is a much deeper conversation that
Speaker 2: I would like to have with you in September during
Speaker 2: National Prevention Suicide Month. Could my producer reach back to
Speaker 2: you after Labor Day and have you on with us
Speaker 2: for an hour and entertain some phone calls?
Speaker 6: Sure, be happy to.
Speaker 2: I would love to do that. How can folks in
Speaker 2: the meantime get to your website? I just think that
Speaker 2: this conversation, you've said so many things that I have
Speaker 2: have absorbed here, and I want my audience to listen
Speaker 2: to you for an hour and to have an opportunity
Speaker 2: to call you during this hour. We interview for folks
Speaker 2: on different topics, and some of them are pretty simple.
Speaker 2: This one's pretty deep and it deserves more time. So,
Speaker 2: but in the short term, how can folks get in
Speaker 2: touch with you or with your website's website? Give give
Speaker 2: us something?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sure, you know. Please go to get sol G E
Speaker 3: T s O L Dot app and you can download
Speaker 3: our app learn all about this subject matter. From there,
Speaker 3: you know how to develop a life of your purpose
Speaker 3: and belonging. And yeah, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: For is going to get back in touch with you
Speaker 2: and we'll do an hour in September. You can. I
Speaker 2: guarantee you will do an hour and we'll have a
Speaker 2: much deeper and I think more fulfilling conversation. This is
Speaker 2: this needs more than the seven, eight, nine ten minute
Speaker 2: interview that we normally do. So thanks so much for
Speaker 2: opening this world to us, and we will have you
Speaker 2: back sometime in September. I'm so looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being willing to do that
Speaker 2: as well. Thanks so much, Nazar. Now, so you've seen
Speaker 2: founder of holistic mental health app Soul Get Soul g
Speaker 2: E T s L dot app. Okay, when we come back,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about the art of conscious conversations,
Speaker 2: which kind of plays into what we were just talking about,
Speaker 2: and we'll get to that right after this quick break
Speaker 2: on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Our next guest matches very nicely with the founder of
Speaker 2: the mental health group Soul Last Hour, Chuck Wisner. He's
Speaker 2: an author and a coach. I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: the art of conscious conversations, transforming how we talk, listen,
Speaker 2: and interact. This sounds interesting, Chuck, tell us about exactly
Speaker 2: what our conscious conversations. I assume you mean maybe listening
Speaker 2: a little more than.
Speaker 5: Talking, well both actually because because the reason I mean
Speaker 5: I wrote the book after many years of working with
Speaker 5: a bunch of leaders. But we sort of grow up
Speaker 5: learning how to talk and be in a conversation and
Speaker 5: just adopt patterns from our families and our cultures and
Speaker 5: don't really ever get taught how they work and what
Speaker 5: the DNA of a conversation is. So in the book,
Speaker 5: I sort of try to break it down into four
Speaker 5: types of conversations and four types of really important archetypes
Speaker 5: that are involved in every conversation we have. So it's
Speaker 5: a way of sort of giving people a new way
Speaker 5: to think about conversations so they can actually maybe navigate
Speaker 5: tough ones better, whether it's your spouse, your kids, or
Speaker 5: your boss.
Speaker 2: Give us the four types, if you can, in short order,
Speaker 2: and then we can perhaps drill down on a couple
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 5: Sure. The first one is storytelling, and that's sort of
Speaker 5: the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell
Speaker 5: about others, and the stories we tell to others. And
Speaker 5: there's some that are really really lovely and wonderful and
Speaker 5: there's some that are really harmful, So there's a lot
Speaker 5: of work to do there for ourselves so that we
Speaker 5: can then move to the next conversation, which is the
Speaker 5: collaboration conversation or the collaborative conversation, which is really the
Speaker 5: art of how we advocate, how we inquire, how we
Speaker 5: ask questions, and our ability to sort of learn from
Speaker 5: other people without getting defensive or having to be right
Speaker 5: all the time. The third one is the creative.
Speaker 4: Conversation, and this is sort of.
Speaker 5: Re equating ourselves with our right brain, because we're so
Speaker 5: trained to be in our left brain and be rational
Speaker 5: and literal, and our right brain is little is actually
Speaker 5: the wiser one, and it's our intuitions, and it's our
Speaker 5: ability to open up our minds so we can think
Speaker 5: about possibilities instead of shutting things down with our judgments.
Speaker 5: And the last one is really crucial for business. We
Speaker 5: live in this day in.
Speaker 4: And day out.
Speaker 5: It's a commitment conversation. It really is the action conversation.
Speaker 5: It's how we coordinate action with other people, the promises
Speaker 5: we make. And we don't understand that conversation very well,
Speaker 5: so we actually do that conversation in a pretty sloppy
Speaker 5: way often, So that example of what you mean by that, oh,
Speaker 5: the sloppy conversations. Yeah, yeah, so that would be like
Speaker 5: whether you know someone asked you to do something and
Speaker 5: without even thinking it could be a boss, could be
Speaker 5: a colleague, it could be even your spouse, and without
Speaker 5: even thinking, we sort of have an addiction to yes,
Speaker 5: sure I can do that. But actually then you go
Speaker 5: and do it and you don't satisfy the other person's
Speaker 5: request because you never talked about what they really wanted.
Speaker 5: You made a lot of assumptions, and then when when
Speaker 5: that happens, we have a broken promise. And if we
Speaker 5: don't deal with that, then we have then we have
Speaker 5: trust issues, probably.
Speaker 2: Trust and then feelings of guilt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: The what's the single most damaging type conversation that the
Speaker 2: average listener of mine might engage in the potential for damage?
Speaker 2: Is it an interfamilial conversation of a conversation with your boss,
Speaker 2: or conversation with someone who maybe is in a transactional
Speaker 2: relationship with you, a business person or a neighbor. What
Speaker 2: what are the ones that, uh that that carry a
Speaker 2: greater concern in your mind?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think it's home and work, and they
Speaker 5: have different flavors. You know, the home is is uh.
Speaker 5: In every conversation home and work, there's always power issues,
Speaker 5: authority issues, and we tend to make a lot of
Speaker 5: judgments based on the standards we live by, but that
Speaker 5: sort of lives in the background of our awareness, and
Speaker 5: so we make a lot of judgments and that whether
Speaker 5: it's at home or work, those judgments become our opinions,
Speaker 5: and then we hold on to them really tightly, and
Speaker 5: our ego holds onto them, and then we defend them,
Speaker 5: and then we're in a conversation with a closed fist
Speaker 5: instead of an open hand. So and that plays out
Speaker 5: at work and at home, and it gets exaggerated at
Speaker 5: work because of hierarchies, because there's you know, we have
Speaker 5: bosses and they have more power than we do, and
Speaker 5: so the conversation gets a little more delicate and also
Speaker 5: more dangerous.
Speaker 2: So the book, the book that you've written. Obviously, we
Speaker 2: can't cover everything that's in this book in the few
Speaker 2: minutes that we have. Is it currently available. I think
Speaker 2: it's called The Art of Conscious Conversation.
Speaker 5: That's right. It's on Amazon. It was published by Barrett
Speaker 5: Kohler It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, askedport at your
Speaker 5: favorite bookstore. Yeah, it's there, and you know it's so
Speaker 5: it's a book. It's not a book that's going to
Speaker 5: give you easy answers, but it's a book that's going
Speaker 5: to give you a window into, like I said, the
Speaker 5: DNA or the ABC of conversations and how they work
Speaker 5: and why they don't work. So you can do some
Speaker 5: practices and you can do some transformation of how you
Speaker 5: enter a difficult conversation and hopefully help other people to
Speaker 5: have more collaborative and creative conversation.
Speaker 2: How long has the book been available? Is this a
Speaker 2: recent release or has it been around a little while.
Speaker 5: It's been out about a year, a little over a year, plush, Yeah,
Speaker 5: is there any And I've been doing a lot of podcasts.
Speaker 5: It's it's it's getting good good attention good.
Speaker 2: That is there? Are there other books or is this one?
Speaker 2: You know your thoughts on this? Is this a novel
Speaker 2: approach or or is this something that others have approached.
Speaker 2: I think it's fascinating listening to you for the last
Speaker 2: few minut to talk about the types of conversations and
Speaker 2: the relationships, and I have listened very carefully, and I
Speaker 2: will get the book. But is this an area where
Speaker 2: there's a variety of experts or are you perhaps of
Speaker 2: trailblazer here?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Well, I think you know there are other books.
Speaker 5: There's there's a book called Difficult Conversations, which are people
Speaker 5: here in the Boston area and Crucial Conversations. Their approach
Speaker 5: is really different. My approach is trying to I tried
Speaker 5: to take some very esoteric ideas around language and linguistics
Speaker 5: that are really hard to read and understand. You know what,
Speaker 5: what are conversation's made out? And why does it make
Speaker 5: us live life the way we do and try to
Speaker 5: take all those things and emotional intelligence and some other
Speaker 5: pieces and make it put it all together in a
Speaker 5: way that people can end up after their reading and
Speaker 5: have a new window into conversations, a new way of
Speaker 5: looking at them. So it's a novel approach, and I
Speaker 5: pulled for many, many different resources from my work over
Speaker 5: the last thirty years to put that together.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for joining us tonight again. I think
Speaker 2: that in this brief conversation that we've had, you've made
Speaker 2: a lot of great points and I hope people consider
Speaker 2: picking this book up the art of conscious conversations, transforming
Speaker 2: how we talk, listen, and interact. Chuck Wisner, thank you
Speaker 2: very much. I see that you're a local person in
Speaker 2: the area here, so we may have you back.
Speaker 5: Okay, definitely having me back. We can go a little deeper. Yeah,
Speaker 5: thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: It's exactly what I was what I was thinking about. Thanks, Chuck,
Speaker 2: I appreciate it very much. We'll talk again. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Bye.
Speaker 2: When we get back on the other side of the
Speaker 2: news break at the bottom of the arrow, we're going
Speaker 2: to be talking. There's a big freight strike, a railroad
Speaker 2: strike going on in Canada, and you may say, well,
Speaker 2: what difference does have to us. Well, Rob Kelly, who's
Speaker 2: a supply chain expert, is going to talk about the
Speaker 2: impact that that might have on all of us. It
Speaker 2: might be a big to the US economy, according to
Speaker 2: see him in business, and we'll get to all that
Speaker 2: right after the break. At the bottom of the hour,
Speaker 2: news is coming up. My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside,
Speaker 2: Boston's news radio right here on WBZ ten thirty on
Speaker 2: your AM dial. If you're driving around and listening to
Speaker 2: us in a carl walk us in here. We'd love
Speaker 2: to have you. Love to have be on your automatic
Speaker 2: dial wherever you are so that you can always find
Speaker 2: Nightside and WBZ we'll be back after this.
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
Speaker 1: news radio.
Speaker 2: That's interesting information. And thank you very much to Cole. Now,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, there's a big and it's not
Speaker 2: a strike. It's a lockout going on up in Canada
Speaker 2: with railroads. A lot of people involved, and it could
Speaker 2: have a spillover effect for all of us here in
Speaker 2: the lower forty eight if you will with us, as
Speaker 2: Rob Kelly a supply chain expert. Rob, what's going on
Speaker 2: north of the border.
Speaker 6: Hey, very good, it's great to be on. Thanks for
Speaker 6: having me.
Speaker 2: My pleasure to have you, because I just learned about this.
Speaker 2: This is not a strike, it's a lockout. That's a difference.
Speaker 2: That's a difference.
Speaker 6: That's right. So the Teamsters Union of Canada is, you know,
Speaker 6: asking for better working conditions, reduction in on the job
Speaker 6: fatigue and better pay, and the two major railways are
Speaker 6: not interested and so they have essentially well they had
Speaker 6: locked them out until near the end of the business
Speaker 6: day today when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directed the Head
Speaker 6: of of Commerce to basically order arbitration so that the
Speaker 6: lockout may end almost as fast as it started.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this what what my concern is, what sort
Speaker 2: of an impact might this have on us? Do the
Speaker 2: Canadian railroads, I know some of them come across the border,
Speaker 2: how much of it? How much of an adverse impact
Speaker 2: could this have if let us say, somehow maybe the
Speaker 2: unions decided to go.
Speaker 6: On strike, Yes, it could be, it could be very large. Typically,
Speaker 6: a few days isn't going to hurt us, but if
Speaker 6: this were to stretch into a week or longer, then
Speaker 6: it would have a very big impact on us. There
Speaker 6: there are a number of different products and goods that
Speaker 6: come back and forth between Canada and the United States.
Speaker 6: And you know, if you remember NAFTA and all the
Speaker 6: you know the trade agreements that we have, about half
Speaker 6: to two thirds of all shipments UH are coming via
Speaker 6: rail between Canada in the United States. And that's that's
Speaker 6: billions of dollars, actually about a billion dollars a day
Speaker 6: in Canada, with about two thirds of that coming to
Speaker 6: the US. So what do you have major impact?
Speaker 2: You know, what do they explore to us? What what
Speaker 2: products are we getting from Canada? Just so people can
Speaker 2: understand what.
Speaker 6: Sure, Yeah, there's a lot of chemical businesses, food distributors
Speaker 6: that that would be directly affected. The auto industry is
Speaker 6: probably next because it relies on just in time shipments
Speaker 6: with you know, cross border deliveries of engines, parts, and
Speaker 6: even finished vehicles in some cases. So there's quite a
Speaker 6: bit of manufacturing business for autos in Canada. And four
Speaker 6: out of every five cars that are made in Canada
Speaker 6: are exported to the United States by rail. And then
Speaker 6: oh yeah, no.
Speaker 2: No, looking at it the other way, what do we
Speaker 2: ship up there that may end up backed up here
Speaker 2: and sitting somewhere in warehouses here?
Speaker 6: Yes, excellent question. The biggest one is in agriculture. So
Speaker 6: we export about twenty eight billion dollars of agriculture products
Speaker 6: to Canada every year, and a majority of that is
Speaker 6: harvested crops. And it's particularly a big problem this year
Speaker 6: because the Midwest farmers are having a kind of a
Speaker 6: bumper year high yields of crops, and so the problem
Speaker 6: is when you have a lot of crops, you don't
Speaker 6: necessarily have a lot of places to store it, and
Speaker 6: so that is typically where those either sales occurred that
Speaker 6: goes to Canada, or at the very least just store
Speaker 6: it of those harvest crops would go to Canada. So
Speaker 6: disruption in the rail system would be very detrimental to
Speaker 6: the act industry.
Speaker 2: So as we approach this, just I don't know how
Speaker 2: much of this the details you have, So if I'm
Speaker 2: asking unfair questions, let me know. Sure, is there a
Speaker 2: contract between the railroad companies and the teamsters in Canada?
Speaker 2: Has it already expired or is the lockout as the
Speaker 2: negotiating for a contract. My guess is they're probably working
Speaker 2: without a contract at this point.
Speaker 6: Yes, And you know, I don't know the details on that.
Speaker 6: I don't know if it expired or if just the
Speaker 6: lockout began.
Speaker 2: Okay, from what then? Let me ask you, what then
Speaker 2: is the history of labor relations between the railroads in
Speaker 2: the teamsters, which I assume represent most, if not all,
Speaker 2: of the railroad I playes had. Is this an unprecedented,
Speaker 2: you know, a dispute or is this something that happens
Speaker 2: every three or four years and uh and somehow they
Speaker 2: worked through it?
Speaker 6: Yes, a great question. I know that there has been
Speaker 6: challenges with a number of unions both in the United
Speaker 6: States and in Canada. The interesting thing about this one
Speaker 6: was that the team Stars Canada was, you know, talking
Speaker 6: about these again conditions and better pay over a year ago,
Speaker 6: and negotiations started over a year ago, and you would
Speaker 6: have thought that, you know, with that much time, that
Speaker 6: they could have found a resolution. But both sides got
Speaker 6: pretty entrenched, and so the fact that it has led
Speaker 6: to a stoppage, it's not unprecedented, but it's been I
Speaker 6: believe a few decades since it happened. And so that's
Speaker 6: when the lockout started. You know, the Prime Minister stepped
Speaker 6: in almost immediately.
Speaker 2: Well, I would assume, knowing a little bit about the
Speaker 2: laws in Canada, not be an expert, that there's much
Speaker 2: more of an interventionist attitude that the Prime Minister would
Speaker 2: have in terms of labor relations. Normally in America, the
Speaker 2: NLB will stand back and allow the negotiation to continue
Speaker 2: for some time unless it does impact a critical trade
Speaker 2: relationship or critical products for the American people. But normally
Speaker 2: I would have assumed that maybe, well, Trudeau obviously acted quickly.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised he didn't even act act more quickly. Obviously
Speaker 2: at this point, he's forcing them back to the marketing table.
Speaker 2: I find with any labor negotiations, and I've been involved
Speaker 2: in a couple of my own. I'm a union member
Speaker 2: and was a shop steward that everybody sort of waits
Speaker 2: until the final hour or before they get real on this,
Speaker 2: and then you're you know, we have unions down here
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts where they will work for a year, teachers'
Speaker 2: unions work for a year without a contract, then they
Speaker 2: go on strike, or police departments work. So I assume
Speaker 2: that the dynamic, the negotiation dynamic, is probably pretty simple here.
Speaker 2: Very rarely do you hear that one of these contracts,
Speaker 2: particularly with the major unions, is resolved six months before
Speaker 2: the deadline. It seems to be just part of that
Speaker 2: kabooki dance that both sides feel they have to go through.
Speaker 2: The companies want to extract as much concessions out of
Speaker 2: the unions as they can in recent years, and the
Speaker 2: union leadership wants their membership to know that they are
Speaker 2: standing up for them. Do you have a thought or
Speaker 2: a prediction as to where we go from here? Rob?
Speaker 2: Do you think that because the Prime Minister of Canada,
Speaker 2: Justin Trudeau, has interceded that that's going to put them
Speaker 2: back at the table and they'll be forced to an agreement,
Speaker 2: or do you think this could linger for a while
Speaker 2: and maybe get worse over the next few weeks.
Speaker 6: I honestly, I believe that by forcing arbitration that this
Speaker 6: will probably be resolved. But I think it's still going
Speaker 6: to be in terms of the supply chain. The challenge is,
Speaker 6: you know, once once this starts, you're already creating supply
Speaker 6: chain problems. Right. So, now you know you have the
Speaker 6: two major railroads GP, CAC and CN. You know they've
Speaker 6: embargoed all shipments that originate in Canada for export. And
Speaker 6: then like the Port of Vancouver, which is their major
Speaker 6: importing shipping channel, you know it has now embargoed all
Speaker 6: of the containers that are within its terminal and all
Speaker 6: the shipments now are being diverted to you know, Seattle, Tacoma,
Speaker 6: Oakland or even LBC.
Speaker 2: So the teams is refusing to unload the ship that's
Speaker 2: in Vancouver.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean when the lockout occurred, you know, nine
Speaker 6: ten thousand people couldn't go to work.
Speaker 2: No, I understand that, But now the lockout is over,
Speaker 2: so I assume they're back at work. Tomorrow or I'm
Speaker 2: my making a wrong assumption.
Speaker 6: Oh no, no, no, no, I think you're right. But again,
Speaker 6: since now it's been you know, dormant for the last
Speaker 6: twenty four hours, you've already started to back up supply chaincha,
Speaker 6: So that's going to take, you know, for every day,
Speaker 6: there's probably another two or three days that it takes
Speaker 6: to unwind that. So that's why, like if you get
Speaker 6: into a week or beyond, you know, you could be
Speaker 6: talking about weeks of disruption. And remember too, this is
Speaker 6: from a supply chain perspective. This is really their peak
Speaker 6: season because you have all the imports of retail goods
Speaker 6: coming in for the Christmas season, so the ports are
Speaker 6: all full right now with with activity.
Speaker 2: Well, Rob, appreciate your perspective. It's something that I know
Speaker 2: very little about, and you've clarified it for me, and
Speaker 2: I know you've clarified it from my audience, and we
Speaker 2: may get back to you as this situation continues to evolve.
Speaker 2: I do appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for being with us.
Speaker 6: Thank you and thanks for having me on. Have a
Speaker 6: great evening you too.
Speaker 2: Rob. When we get back, we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: the history of the American Mafia. Yeah, Lewis Ferrante, former
Speaker 2: mafia associate Filma Gambino Family heist expert, didn't even know
Speaker 2: they had heist experts. But that's okay. We'll talk with
Speaker 2: Lewis about a new book that he has just published
Speaker 2: and will I think we'll find this to be very
Speaker 2: interesting coming up on the other side of the break.
Speaker 2: My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside on a Thursday night,
Speaker 2: August twenty second. For those of you keep in track.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the window World.
Speaker 1: Nice night Studios. I'm WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Joining is now is Lewis. He's a former Mafi associate.
Speaker 2: It's always great to talk to someone who used to
Speaker 2: be in the mafia. Lewis, Welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 4: Thanks a lot, Dan appreciate it. I'm well. Hope you
Speaker 4: are as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, I am, so you're a former Gambino Family heist expert.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that they had specialties within the Gambino family.
Speaker 4: They do. It takes a lot of every kind of
Speaker 4: different meat to make a sauce, so every family has
Speaker 4: every family has different guys but different things and how foolish.
Speaker 4: Would a captain Look if somebody came to him, Maybe
Speaker 4: guy owes them a half a million and says, hey,
Speaker 4: i'll give you a tip on a heist. You know,
Speaker 4: maybe we could square my bill. And then the capo says, gee,
Speaker 4: I have nobody, uh who could do that. I wouldn't
Speaker 4: know where to begin. You know, they called me, they
Speaker 4: know you know that's what they did. They called me,
Speaker 4: and then I had my crew. We looked into it,
Speaker 4: we scoped it out. If it was worth doing, we
Speaker 4: did it. And so and hest came to us from
Speaker 4: all different walks of life, all the different types of people.
Speaker 4: They weren't just street people a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 4: legitimate people that worked obs. They get them, they get
Speaker 4: themselves in over their head with a mortgage. Maybe a
Speaker 4: spendthrift wife. A guy might come to me and say,
Speaker 4: my wife can't stop spending. I'm in dad, I can't
Speaker 4: pay the credit cards. I'll give you a tip on
Speaker 4: this or that. And you know, the tips come from
Speaker 4: the craziest places. But I did everything you could imagine
Speaker 4: so in that area.
Speaker 2: So at what age did you, I assume you became
Speaker 2: a maid member.
Speaker 4: No, I was scheduled to be slated to become made.
Speaker 4: When I went away, I had the FBI, the Secret
Speaker 4: Service in the Nashaal County Organized Crime task for was
Speaker 4: take me down. I had three indictments over my head
Speaker 4: at twenty four years old. So I was supposed to
Speaker 4: get straightened out my friends that we would get we were.
Speaker 4: I had friends of mine, obviously on the street. Some
Speaker 4: of them were born into the life, some of them weren't.
Speaker 4: They came into it like I did, and we were
Speaker 4: all supposed to get straightened out together. And I went away.
Speaker 4: So they started getting straightened out after I went away.
Speaker 4: And the plan was that when I came home, I
Speaker 4: face life. I didn't know if I was ever going
Speaker 4: to come home.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: When I finally did come home, I did eight and
Speaker 4: a half years hard time. When I finally did come home,
Speaker 4: they were waiting for me. They wanted to straighten me out,
Speaker 4: you know now, even more so because I did my time.
Speaker 4: I kept my mouth shut, and by then I had
Speaker 4: woken up. I had I had realized that, you know,
Speaker 4: the whole life that I was leading was wrong. So
Speaker 4: when they.
Speaker 2: When you say they wanted to straighten you up, they
Speaker 2: wanted to bring into the group.
Speaker 4: Formerly they wanted to initiate me. Yeah, okay, into the bog,
Speaker 4: into the family, right.
Speaker 2: And so you did eight and a half years federal time.
Speaker 4: I did eight and a half years well, a little
Speaker 4: a mix of boat so I had I had a
Speaker 4: I was sentenced to thirteen years in this in the Feds.
Speaker 4: Originally I went into court with the late William Kunstler
Speaker 4: was my attorney.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, Bilunseler. He was the attorney to the radicals.
Speaker 2: I didn't really well, of course you were, you would
Speaker 2: have been a paying customer.
Speaker 4: So that you got yeah, I came, Yeah. I came
Speaker 4: to him in a weird way. He can't. He helped
Speaker 4: John Gotti out John's appeal after John was convicted and
Speaker 4: given a life sentence. He was trying to get John
Speaker 4: out on appeal and I came to him in a
Speaker 4: weird way, and then he ended up he said a
Speaker 4: friend to John as a friend of mine, and he
Speaker 4: came in and helped me on my case, and then
Speaker 4: he ended up taking my case, all my cases, and
Speaker 4: he was a great guy. I got along with him.
Speaker 4: I didn't know radical left, radical right. I didn't politics.
Speaker 4: I didn't know my ass for my elbow in the
Speaker 4: world of politics at that time. I just knew he
Speaker 4: was a famous attorney, and I got along with him,
Speaker 4: and uh, and he ended up you know, he did
Speaker 4: his best, but yeah, I was a paying customer and
Speaker 4: it ended up. Somebody wrote a biography a few years back,
Speaker 4: and they put me in there and they said that
Speaker 4: you know, he always said that Council always said that
Speaker 4: he did everything pro bono, but that's not true. No,
Speaker 4: gave mobsters that paid him big money, and I was
Speaker 4: one of them. I gave him over one hundred grand.
Speaker 2: No, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, he could do pro
Speaker 2: bono for the for the political radicals as long as
Speaker 2: he was also had some paying customers coming in the
Speaker 2: other door. So how much did would you? Did you
Speaker 2: spend time? Dan Bring? Where where did you?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I was so yeah, I ended up I was
Speaker 4: facing life in the FEDS. And the reason why I
Speaker 4: didn't have any bodies, I wasn't charged with bodies. The
Speaker 4: worst crimes were just uh, heights and hijackings and every
Speaker 4: time yeah yeah, yeah, real property. But there were there
Speaker 4: was always uh, there were victims involved, you know, there
Speaker 4: was they were armed robberies, and then you know we unfortunately,
Speaker 4: I very I regret to say this today, but we
Speaker 4: tied people up. And you know, if we took if
Speaker 4: we did a heist, you know, you have to subdue
Speaker 4: the person and then we would let them know immediately. Look,
Speaker 4: we're just after the money. We're not after you. We
Speaker 4: don't want to hurt you. We promise you you'll be
Speaker 4: home with your wife and kids by tonight. You know,
Speaker 4: there's nothing we want from you. We we were definitely
Speaker 4: not that that excuses my conduct in any.
Speaker 2: Way, but yourself professionally, and I mean, you weren't there
Speaker 2: to terrorize someone. You weren't there in a pistol whip
Speaker 2: someone you wanted them to, right, You didn't do your
Speaker 2: job and get out, I get it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, we would explain that we're just looking for
Speaker 4: the truckle. We're just looking for whatever whatever we were
Speaker 4: looking for the heist. If it was a safe that's
Speaker 4: all we want. And so in the end, each time
Speaker 4: your charge with a with a heighst or a hijacking,
Speaker 4: it was a ten year statue. And then each time
Speaker 4: a gun was using the commission of a crime that
Speaker 4: was a five year statue. On top of the ten.
Speaker 4: So let's say you got your charge with ten heists
Speaker 4: and hijackings. I was facing one hundred years for the
Speaker 4: on the crimes itself, and then another fifty for the
Speaker 4: gun charges. So I was facing one hundred and fifty years,
Speaker 4: which is equal to life in prison.
Speaker 2: Facts. I assume what they did was they rolled them
Speaker 2: up for you, and you weren't trying it. You either
Speaker 2: pled out for for you know, for all of them,
Speaker 2: for one.
Speaker 4: That's right. I was pledged up. I plied out. I
Speaker 4: copped to one hijacking in the end, and I got
Speaker 4: thirteen years in the FEDS, and they gave me the
Speaker 4: state time concurrent. While I was away, I went through
Speaker 4: seven attorneys, and then I eventually met a guy who says, hey,
Speaker 4: why don't I take you down to the wall library.
Speaker 4: I'll teach you the law. You could represent yourself. And
Speaker 4: I reversed the biggest case I had, which was the
Speaker 4: FBI case. I reversed that pro se with this, I
Speaker 4: can scert your Court of appeals on a technicality, not
Speaker 4: because I was innocent, but I got Yeah, I got
Speaker 4: out in eight and a half years. I'm happy to
Speaker 4: say I did that eight and a half years. I
Speaker 4: did hard time. I was in Lewisbourg Penitentiary in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Eight when it's Pennsylvania area.
Speaker 4: Oh, Dan, it was a hell hole. Dan, I can't
Speaker 4: even begin to tell you. My very first day in population.
Speaker 4: The Aryan Brotherhood hacked to that then gutted two black
Speaker 4: Muslim inmates that they were at war with. There were
Speaker 4: six or eight homicides back and forth between the Arians
Speaker 4: and the Black Muslims.
Speaker 2: They were listen this, I'm running out of time. I
Speaker 2: want to pluge the book. So the book is a
Speaker 2: history of the American mafia, featuring the book right Borgata
Speaker 2: Clash of Titans covers nineteen sixty and eighty four. Gotta
Speaker 2: yeahta yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: The first yeah, well, the first one is Borgatta Borgatta.
Speaker 4: Volume one was Rise of Empire, which begins in Sicily
Speaker 4: and it takes the entire evolution of the American mafia
Speaker 4: up and through the twentieth century and ends in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 4: Volume two, Class of Titans, begins in nineteen sixty and
Speaker 4: that starts with the Kennedy administration.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's what we're gonna do. I'm going to my
Speaker 2: producer call you. You're back, get in touch with you,
Speaker 2: and we're going to bring you back, and we're gonna
Speaker 2: do a whole hour, not just a short eight p
Speaker 2: eight interview. We'll set it up in the next couple
Speaker 2: of weeks and we'll take phone calls.
Speaker 4: Fair enough, sounds good? Yeah, well this air as well then,
Speaker 4: or you want to go well.
Speaker 2: This is live right now, you're and you can listen
Speaker 2: to this tomorrow. Rob will tell you how to download
Speaker 2: it tomorrow. Night's out in demand dot com. But we'll
Speaker 2: do an hour live with phone calls as well. This
Speaker 2: is not tape. This is live. We were live. Okay,
Speaker 2: sounds good?
Speaker 4: All right, great, then I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Well, well, yeah, I know a lot about it. I
Speaker 2: was involved in organized investigating organized criminal activity up here,
Speaker 2: and I also got four guys out who had been involved.
Speaker 2: But we're intentionally and wrongfully convicted by corrupt FBI agents.
Speaker 2: In my last as a television reporter, they were awarded
Speaker 2: one hundred and one million dollars for having spent a
Speaker 2: total of one hundred and nine years in prison for
Speaker 2: crime they never committed.
Speaker 4: Incredible and I have to tip my hat to you, Dan,
Speaker 4: I did look up that, uh I did some research
Speaker 4: before I had on the phone with you when I
Speaker 4: was absolutely blown away by your career, and uh yeah,
Speaker 4: we will.
Speaker 2: We will be We'll be together in the next couple
Speaker 2: of weeks, I promise you, and we'll spend We'll have
Speaker 2: a great hour. Thanks Lewis.
Speaker 4: That's good. Dan, have a good night.
Speaker 2: But that's great. We got the nine o'clock news. That's
Speaker 2: going to be a great hour. Stick with us. We're
Speaker 2: going to talk about a different type of crime coming
Speaker 2: up on the other side. Why is Boston bomber number
Speaker 2: two still alive and back in court? This saga needs
Speaker 2: to end, and it needs to end quickly. Back on
Speaker 2: Nights side after the nine