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Speaker 1: All right, this is it. Everybody, here we go, welcome.

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This is Matt Connorton Unleashed, the AF version of the

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show mcu AF And as I always like to say,

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if you don't know what the AF stands for, just

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ask someone younger than you. But this is a version

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of the show, and today is going to be a

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very unusual version of the show. But the podcast version,

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you know, we do as kind of a it's a

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supplement to the actual radio show. The radio show we

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do of Matt Connorton Unleashed every Saturday morning from nine

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am to noon from the studios of w n H

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ninety five point three FM and Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire.

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But the podcast version we do separate. It is strictly

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online and the purpose of the podcast version of the

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show is really just to do anything that we want

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to do on the show that for one reason or

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another we just is just not going to fit the

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current format of the radio show. So we only do

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the podcast version of the show occasionally. But that's that's

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what this is now. You know. I was attempted to just

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do the stream and not call it Matt Connorson Unleashed,

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not even call it that, but I am going to

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put it out in the podcast feed so people who

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subscribe to the show will get it because and it'll

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make sense in a moment when I tell you what

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we're doing, even though we're doing something unusual. So this

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was not advertised at all. I kind of decided in

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the moment a few minutes ago that now is the time.

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It's something that's been kicking around in my mind for

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a while. Again, this will all makes sense. I'm sorry

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if I'm being cryptic. I'm getting to it. But but

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for anyone who happens to be streaming the show live,

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because most people will just get it in the podcast

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after the fact. But if you are joining me live,

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today is Sunday, January twenty twenty five, twenty fifth Sunday

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January twenty fifth, twenty twenty six, as the country is

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in the midst of a terrible, terrible storm and I

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hope everyone is safe here in Manchester, New Hampshire, where

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I am right now. I did some shoveling earlier, and

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I planned to do some more shoveling in a little

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bit because trying to trying to stay ahead of it,

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trying to keep up with it, as best as possible,

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which is not easy to do. But but you know,

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we're lucky here. I mean, at least we're prepared for

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for weather events here. You know, in some parts of

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the country, obviously obviously in the South, they're not prepared

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for for anything like this. You know, in places like

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Texas and Arkansas, where they're experiencing you know, ice and

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even a little bit of snow there can really mess

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things up for them because they're not prepared for it.

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So but we're but we're having quite a storm. So

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I hope everyone is safe, as safe as you can be.

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So what we're doing today is this is why. And

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again I didn't tell anybody ahead of time. It's been

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on my mind all day that it might finally be

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time to do this. This is going to be a

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little bit difficult, and I've been putting it off for

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well been about five weeks now. But my father, as

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some of you watching or listening will know, my dad,

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Martin Connorton, passed away on December eighteenth, twenty twenty five.

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And on the show that Saturday, on the radio show,

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because I still you know, of course I still did

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the radio show that Saturday, you know, because I know

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it's a terrible cliche and it sounds so trite, but

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the show must go on, as they say, and you know,

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I just the best way for me to process grief

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also is just to stay busy. I'm just checking to

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make sure the audio is okay here, okay. I was

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just checking on my phone make sure I had a

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little issue with the microphone the mic setup before going on.

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So I said on the show that Saturday, I opened

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and I kind of did a sort of a brief

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maybe ten twelve minutes, you know, just talking about my

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dad and sorry, I'm looking in the camera and realizing

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how chapped my lips are and how terrible that looks.

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I'm almost unintentionally. I don't I don't mean to do it,

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but it's like, now that I'm doing this, I'm procrastinating.

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I'm getting to it, all right. It's hard. So I

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talked on the show about my dad, and I partly

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because I just wanted to, because I'd been public on

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social media about everything that was going on with him.

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You know, he'd been at Mass General for a couple

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of months. But I wanted to publicly thank everybody for

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the outpouring of love and support, which which really does

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mean a lot to me. And I also said when

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I talked about when I talk about my dad, you know, again,

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relatively briefly that morning, I said that when I was ready,

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I was going to do a separate podcast version of

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the show, a podcast episode of the show where I

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could just do a stream and just just speak freely

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and say everything that I wanted to say. And I

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felt like it was easier and perhaps more productive to

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do it in this format than to do it on

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the radio show, only because to do it live on

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the radio show, you know, you got to kind of

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I mean, we have a busy show, and I didn't

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want to schedule it into the show. Okay, on this day,

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in this segment, I'm going to do this and then

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have the pressure of, first of all, on that day

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when it's time for that segment, I have to be

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emotionally prepared for it. I didn't want that pressure, and

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I didn't want, you know, to be worried about, Okay,

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who's the guest, who's coming up in the next segment.

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I only have so much time to say this. I

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didn't want any of that. I just wanted to be

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able to just speak freely, and it's as long or

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as short as it's going to be because it's not

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the radio show, because it's just the podcast, it's the stream.

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It can be whatever I want, So you know, it

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could be it could be twenty minutes, it could be

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an hour, it doesn't matter, and I can just say

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what I want to say. If if at some point

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I feel like not that this is going to happen,

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but if at some point during this I feel like

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I'm not emotionally able to continue, I just don't where

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if I start to feel like, oh, this was a mistake.

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I thought I was ready, I'm not ready. I can

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dump out of it and say, well, thanks everybody who

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joined us live, but I'm not going to finish this

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right now. So I do see that we have some

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some people who have joined us live, and welcome everybody,

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and the chat room is open, by the way, if

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anyone wants to chime in, if anyone has anything to

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say regarding my dad. But but I did say that

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on the radio, I said, when I'm ready, I will

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do a podcast episode. I will do a live and

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a live stream, which of course the audio will be

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taken and made into the podcast episode. Of the show,

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and it's been it's been what five weeks now, because

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he passed away on December eighteenth. I didn't expect it

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to be by the way. I didn't expect it to

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be that long before I did this, but so something

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happened the other night. So I'm going to start. I'm

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going to start here and kind of work backward a

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little bit. But and and by the way too, because

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some people might be curious or might be confused about something.

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So there's a specific reason that I think it's appropriate

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because if you don't know it, might this might all

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seem a little self indulgent to you or a little

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narcissistic on my part, and maybe it is. I mean,

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I got to be a little bit narcissistic, right, because

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anyone who owes a podcast or a radio show, you know,

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there has to be some element of narcissism in one's

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personality to believe that other human beings are interested in

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what we have to present, so that that comes with it, right,

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that is an element of my personality. I acknowledge that,

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for better or worse. But I felt it appropriate because

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a lot of listeners to the radio show over the

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years became familiar with my dad, and some of you

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formed parasocial I guess might be the term relationships with

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my dad. And I don't say that to be dismissive

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or anything like that, but that's you know, many of

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you got to know my dad, not because you met

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him in person or anything, but because you got to

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know him on social media. You know, my dad would

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call into the show and then and then people would

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friend him on Facebook, for example, and and so forth.

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So because so many of you knew him that way,

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I thought, you know, people might like to hear what

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I have to say about him in some detail. But

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also selfishly, and again perhaps narcissistically, but selfishly, I just

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thought it would be good for me to do this

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and to just kind of say everything that I want

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to say about him. If if that's if you're consuming

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this content and that's not interesting to you, I completely understand.

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I'm doing this more for myself than for anyone else. Obviously,

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this is a very different episode of the show than

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than anything else we've ever done on the show. So

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if this is not what you want from Matt Connorton Unleashed,

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uh no, uh, you know, no offense taken. Again, I

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have no idea. When it's all said, I have no

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idea how many people are gonna watch or listen to

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this episode of the show. It may be a lot,

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it may be very few. I have no idea how

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to predict it, and I'm not worried about it. Again, ultimately,

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this is more for myself. But if you are going

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to and you're interested in taking this little journey with me,

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I appreciate you and thank you. But the other night,

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and this is what I meant by we're going to

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start here and then go back. This has been on

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my mind for the past couple of days, and it's

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kind of part of why I finally decided I needed

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to do this now. Not necessarily for closure per se,

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because I kind of hate that term and I don't

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really believe in closure quote unquote, but I think that

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maybe maybe this will help me kind of get past

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the other night, because the other night I had a

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dream about my dad and it's stuck with me. John

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Hopwood warned me about this, by the way, John Hopwood

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said that, And of course longtime listeners of Matt Connorton

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Unleash are familiar with John Hopwood. He's been but I've

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been seeing John Friday nights for Retrospectrum Radio with poly

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C because I'm also a part of that show, and

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John has been a part of that show recently as well,

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and I think he's gonna be on more often, which

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is wonderful. Love John Hopwood. But John kind of warned

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me about this. He said, your father is going to

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visit you in your dreams. He said, it's just what happened.

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And I've heard other people say that too, that their

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parents visit them in their dreams, their parents who've passed

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away or other relatives who have passed away. I you know,

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when he first told me that, I said, Okay, well

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we'll see what happens. John said his mother had never

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visited him after she passed away, but she did tell

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me that my dad would visit me in my dreams. Now,

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what does that mean? Does that mean my dad is

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going to appear in my dreams as a character in

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my dream that I'm having Because I'm processing grief, and

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dreams are just bits and pieces of things going on

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in our subconscious and our unconscious minds. It comes out

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while we're asleep, and you know, or does it mean

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that my father, you know, is sort of a spirit

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somehow floating around. He's going to come into my dream

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and visit me or whatever. Now let me before I

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go any further with that thought, let me just tell

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you this. If you don't know, if you don't know me,

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if you don't know much about me, what I believe,

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what I don't believe. So I will tell you upfront,

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I am not a religious person. To the chagrin of

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my father, I'm not a religious person. I was raised Catholic.

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I you know, once I was old enough to decide

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whether or not to continue to go to church, I said, nope,

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count me out. That's a whole other subject sort of

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because my father was very devout Catholic is all his life.

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But I won't take that side street here. But I'm

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not a religious person, so I don't presume that there

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is anything after this. You know, sometimes people will ask me, Matt,

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why do you you know you do so much? Are

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always so busy? You know why? It's like, Well, because

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I don't. I don't think there's an after I don't

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think there's some great reward waiting for us on the

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other side of this. So I want to make the

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most of this. So I do a lot of different things,

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and I like to be busy. I'm a busy person

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and I like it that way because I want to

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get the most I can out out of this life.

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Because I don't think there's another one waiting for us.

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I don't think there's eternity. All that being said, I

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am open to the idea. I was talking about this

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with a friend just recently. I am open to the

241
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idea that maybe maybe our consciousness or some form of us,

242
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our energy, whatever it may be, does continue on in

243
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some way. I mean, do I believe that there's an

244
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invisible man in the sky and we get to go

245
00:14:08,039 --> 00:14:11,039
be with him after we die. No, no offense to

246
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those of you who are religious. I try to be

247
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respectful of everyone's beliefs. Personally, I find the entire notion

248
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of it rather absurd. I'm just being honest. The show's

249
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called Unleashed for a reason because I say what I think,

250
00:14:24,399 --> 00:14:28,879
like it or lump it. But I but I also

251
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:32,480
at the same time, I cannot deny that I have

252
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seen and experienced things over the course of my life

253
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that I don't know how to explain. So I'm My

254
00:14:42,159 --> 00:14:47,840
default is to be skeptical always especially when it comes

255
00:14:47,879 --> 00:14:51,000
to organized religion, because my personal belief is organized religion

256
00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:54,840
is used as a tool, a political tool, and has

257
00:14:54,919 --> 00:15:02,600
really nothing to do with God ultimately. But maybe because

258
00:15:02,639 --> 00:15:06,519
most people are so phony about it, it's hard not

259
00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:08,559
to take those side streets when I start talking about

260
00:15:08,559 --> 00:15:11,679
this stuff. Okay, so I don't believe that you go

261
00:15:11,799 --> 00:15:14,399
to this magical place called heaven and you get to

262
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hang out with a deity for the rest of eternity,

263
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but I am open to the idea that you may

264
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continue on in some other form. I kind of hope

265
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that that's not the case, because as nice as that

266
00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:32,759
might sound on the surface, I kind of you know,

267
00:15:32,840 --> 00:15:36,480
Christopher Hitchens talked about this and wrote about this. He

268
00:15:36,519 --> 00:15:41,240
actually found the idea of an afterlife more frightening than oblivion,

269
00:15:41,399 --> 00:15:45,799
because you know, you do you want to be just

270
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floating around for all eternity. That doesn't sound that great necessarily.

271
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I mean, what if there is an after life and

272
00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:57,720
it sucks, and maybe that's what hell would be, but

273
00:15:57,919 --> 00:15:59,679
what if every so well, what if it sucks for

274
00:15:59,679 --> 00:16:05,159
every I don't know. So it's almost it's almost less

275
00:16:05,200 --> 00:16:08,000
comforting to think that you go to this other place.

276
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But so I get. What I'm trying to say is

277
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when I talk about my dad coming to visit me

278
00:16:16,919 --> 00:16:20,360
in my dream, I'm not saying that he actually came

279
00:16:20,399 --> 00:16:23,200
and visited in my dream. But I'm also not saying

280
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that he didn't. I'm open to the possibility that he

281
00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:30,519
is on some other plane and he can come into

282
00:16:30,519 --> 00:16:36,600
my dreams. Probably not, it's probably just me processing my grief.

283
00:16:37,919 --> 00:16:45,000
That's the most logical thing. Here's what makes me wonder though,

284
00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:47,720
here's part of why when it comes to dreams, I'm

285
00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:54,000
open to these other things. So most dreams. People like

286
00:16:54,039 --> 00:16:56,960
to talk about how their dreams mean something or you know,

287
00:16:57,039 --> 00:17:01,039
their dreams are predictive in some way. They they dream

288
00:17:01,080 --> 00:17:03,759
about things and then it must be a psychic thing

289
00:17:03,799 --> 00:17:05,880
that's happening, because they'll dream about something and then it

290
00:17:05,880 --> 00:17:07,960
actually happens and it actually comes true. Now, I don't

291
00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:11,400
believe any of that because for me, and I'm pretty

292
00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:14,200
sure this is the case for most people, my dreams

293
00:17:14,319 --> 00:17:18,559
are almost always just completely random. They don't make any sense.

294
00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:22,319
If they even have, you know, the slightest thread of

295
00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:25,839
a storyline to them, it just it doesn't. It doesn't

296
00:17:25,839 --> 00:17:29,599
make sense. There's there's people in my dream, these different

297
00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:32,680
characters that I knew in different periods of my life,

298
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:35,640
who couldn't possibly exist in my life at the same time,

299
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:38,640
none of it makes any sense. And then I, you know,

300
00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:40,680
and then I wake up thinking what the hell was

301
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:43,799
that about? You know, so my dreams don't make sense,

302
00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:46,960
and then I forget them. You know, dreams fade, and

303
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:49,599
that's the natural that's a natural thing for all of us. Right,

304
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:52,640
we wake up and whatever we were dreaming about almost

305
00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:56,359
immediately starts to fade away. So when you go back

306
00:17:56,359 --> 00:17:58,720
and try to remember that dream later, unless it's a

307
00:17:58,759 --> 00:18:01,480
dream that made a real impression on you, you can't

308
00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:06,119
even remember much of anything about the dream. That's why,

309
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:08,160
you know. There used to be this myth. I hope

310
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:11,000
nobody still believed this. This still believes this. But there

311
00:18:11,079 --> 00:18:13,359
used to be this weird idea that some people dream

312
00:18:13,359 --> 00:18:16,200
in black and white and some people dream in color.

313
00:18:16,519 --> 00:18:19,759
And obviously it's bullshit. Nobody dreams in black and white.

314
00:18:19,799 --> 00:18:22,519
Why would you dream in black and white? Your brain

315
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:26,000
is not a television. It's not an old television that

316
00:18:26,079 --> 00:18:27,920
you know. It doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone

317
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:32,640
dream in black and white? But the explanation that researchers

318
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:35,480
figured out is it's because for some people when they

319
00:18:35,519 --> 00:18:38,039
come out of the dream, the first thing that they

320
00:18:38,079 --> 00:18:42,720
begin to forget is the colors. They forget the colors

321
00:18:42,759 --> 00:18:45,880
of the dream. So they have a perception that they

322
00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:49,599
were dreaming in black and white, when in reality that's impossible.

323
00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:51,920
Why would you dream in black and white? Makes no

324
00:18:52,039 --> 00:18:57,319
logical sense. So I say all that to say the

325
00:18:57,480 --> 00:19:02,880
dream I had about my father was so vivid and

326
00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:07,319
so real that I can't get it out of my mind.

327
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:13,400
And I haven't forgotten a single detail about it. So

328
00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:16,359
and that's part of why I decided to do this today,

329
00:19:16,359 --> 00:19:18,160
because I can't get that dream out of my mind.

330
00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:22,599
And I'm gonna tell you what happened in the dream.

331
00:19:22,839 --> 00:19:24,720
And it was not a nice dream. It wasn't a

332
00:19:24,839 --> 00:19:29,079
nice you know. Uh oh, hey, Dad, you're coming to

333
00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:31,519
see me in my dream. It's so good to know

334
00:19:31,559 --> 00:19:34,240
that you're still floating around somewhere in the ether or whatever.

335
00:19:34,279 --> 00:19:37,279
The hell. No, it was not a nice dream. It

336
00:19:37,279 --> 00:19:40,079
was a nightmare. So here's here's what my dream was.

337
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:46,480
I'm sitting in the driveway. It's dark, so it's nighttime.

338
00:19:46,599 --> 00:19:48,720
I'm in the car in the driveway. I look to

339
00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:54,240
my left and I see my father walking toward me slowly.

340
00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:59,000
He's walking toward the car. He's going very slow. He

341
00:19:59,039 --> 00:20:01,480
has a blank express on his face, but he's looking

342
00:20:01,519 --> 00:20:08,240
directly at me. And I start freaking out, and I start, yeah,

343
00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:10,160
forgive me, there's a little bit of harsh language here.

344
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:13,799
If there's any youngins listening, probably not. But I started

345
00:20:13,839 --> 00:20:16,759
freaking out, and I started yelling at him, what the

346
00:20:16,799 --> 00:20:19,880
fuck are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here.

347
00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:23,200
Get out of here. You are not supposed to be here.

348
00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:26,640
Why are you here? And I'm just sub screaming at him,

349
00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:30,839
and then, uh, you know, and then I started yelling

350
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:35,359
for help because I didn't understand why my father, who

351
00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:39,160
is dead, is approaching me while I'm sitting in the

352
00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:42,359
car in the driveway and I'm freaked out and he

353
00:20:42,599 --> 00:20:44,759
and he's just got this blank look on his face,

354
00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:49,359
and I feel like he's so trite to say it,

355
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:51,359
but I almost felt like I was trapped in a

356
00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:54,720
zombie movie or something. And I started yelling. After I

357
00:20:54,759 --> 00:20:56,640
was done yelling at him to get get the fuck

358
00:20:56,680 --> 00:20:59,079
away from me, I start I started yelling for help

359
00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:04,720
and that's when I woke up. That dream is it

360
00:21:04,839 --> 00:21:09,160
was so vivid and so real. The only other dream

361
00:21:09,519 --> 00:21:12,160
I can think of that I've ever had that was

362
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:17,759
like that, and Jenny's the only person I've ever told

363
00:21:17,759 --> 00:21:19,920
about this. The only other dream I can have that

364
00:21:20,079 --> 00:21:23,519
was like that was a number of years ago. I

365
00:21:23,559 --> 00:21:26,000
think it was shortly after I started at WM and H,

366
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:28,279
so it was quite a few years ago, because I'll

367
00:21:28,279 --> 00:21:30,319
have been there, sheeid, It'll be nine years in April.

368
00:21:30,319 --> 00:21:34,640
Oh my god, time it goes way too fast. I

369
00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:36,799
had a dream, and this was a positive dream, although

370
00:21:36,839 --> 00:21:39,079
I woke up crying because it was very moving to me.

371
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:44,240
But I had a dream about a gentleman named John Denido. Now,

372
00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:46,799
when I was in high school, and I'm dating myself

373
00:21:46,799 --> 00:21:48,240
a bit here, but when I was in high school,

374
00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:52,759
I worked at Sears. And if there's anyone who sees

375
00:21:52,799 --> 00:21:55,559
this or listens from Concord, New Hampshire, you might know

376
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:58,039
that Sears at the time before it was in the

377
00:21:58,039 --> 00:22:01,000
Seeplegate Mall, it was on Main Street and conquered. It

378
00:22:01,039 --> 00:22:04,160
was a much smaller location and I worked there and

379
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:07,640
John Denido was the manager there of the department that

380
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:09,920
I worked in and John was a great guy, just

381
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:14,440
a wonderful, wonderful man. Couldn't have asked for a nicer boss,

382
00:22:15,279 --> 00:22:17,119
so nice, in fact, he was. Probably in some ways

383
00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:20,640
he might have been a little too nice, just in

384
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:23,039
terms of it was easy to get away with stuff,

385
00:22:23,079 --> 00:22:25,319
and you know, he didn't really like to get you know,

386
00:22:25,759 --> 00:22:28,640
get mad at anybody, and he probably should have, because

387
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,599
I and the other high school age people who are

388
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:35,039
working there were not always the best employees in some ways, probably,

389
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,319
but John was a very nice man, and I would

390
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:41,200
run into him even years after I worked as year

391
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:45,680
as I would run into him occasionally. And then I

392
00:22:45,839 --> 00:22:48,359
found out from someone I had talked to or run

393
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:51,480
into that John had passed away. He had been a smoker,

394
00:22:52,039 --> 00:22:55,480
he'd always been a heavy smoker, and apparently the lung

395
00:22:55,519 --> 00:22:59,359
cancer got him and he passed away. And I think

396
00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:02,319
it was probably a year or two after that. After

397
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:08,000
he died, I had a dream and this was this

398
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,920
was so vivid, and I still remember every detail about it.

399
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:20,160
In my dream, I'm back in high school working at

400
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,240
Sears in the hardware department. Which will be funny to

401
00:23:23,319 --> 00:23:25,839
people who know me really well, because I'm the most

402
00:23:26,599 --> 00:23:30,480
unhandy person you'll ever meet. But for whatever reason, I

403
00:23:30,559 --> 00:23:37,880
was working in the hardware department and John Denido appears

404
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:42,960
and walks over to me and he said to me,

405
00:23:45,039 --> 00:23:50,240
and I knew he was talking about the radio show

406
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:56,480
or the podcasting because so just quick backstory. When I

407
00:23:56,519 --> 00:23:59,759
first went to work there at Sears, I was very shy,

408
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,279
very quiet, very quiet. I was such an introvert. I mean,

409
00:24:03,279 --> 00:24:07,079
I am an introvert. Technically, it's not something you necessarily

410
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:08,519
grow out of. You just learn to manage it so

411
00:24:08,519 --> 00:24:10,240
you can do things like this. But I was very

412
00:24:10,279 --> 00:24:14,160
much an introvert, very shy, very quiet, didn't express myself

413
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:19,519
very much. But John he comes over to me in

414
00:24:19,559 --> 00:24:24,079
this dream, and he looked He didn't look like he

415
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:27,440
looked the last time I had seen him. Run into him.

416
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:29,000
He looked like he did when I was in high

417
00:24:29,039 --> 00:24:33,440
school when he hired me. And he walked over to

418
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:38,359
me and he said, Matt, I just want you to

419
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:45,759
know that you were so shy and so quiet when

420
00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:49,640
you came to work for me. But I always knew

421
00:24:51,039 --> 00:24:54,799
that someday you would find your voice and that you

422
00:24:54,839 --> 00:25:00,119
would have a lot to say. I always knew, and

423
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:08,640
I'm very proud of you. And see, even now, it's

424
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,720
still so vivid in my mind. Even now it affects

425
00:25:11,799 --> 00:25:20,880
me thinking about that dream and that moment. It's bizarre,

426
00:25:21,839 --> 00:25:23,720
but it does. It does. It still affects me now

427
00:25:23,759 --> 00:25:39,720
and then and and then he said, don't ever go

428
00:25:39,839 --> 00:25:52,000
back to being quiet. And he said, uh, I'll I'll

429
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:59,680
see you again someday. They kind of he kind of

430
00:26:00,319 --> 00:26:04,000
smiled and laughed, and he said, but don't worry, not

431
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:11,160
anytime soon, which was typical of John. And then he

432
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:13,920
just went away. And then I woke up, and I

433
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:17,720
woke up in tears. But that's the only other dream.

434
00:26:18,079 --> 00:26:20,599
So that was a nice, a nice dream to have

435
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:27,319
such a vivid, uh, a vivid experience dreaming that. But uh,

436
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:29,799
but that's the only other one I can remember ever

437
00:26:29,839 --> 00:26:34,240
having like that. I've also had instances of sleep paralysis,

438
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:36,559
which I won't get into all that because that's a

439
00:26:36,559 --> 00:26:38,960
whole If you've ever experienced sleep paralysis, you know that's

440
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:42,519
like you're really having a nightmare, and it also seems

441
00:26:42,599 --> 00:26:45,680
very vivid and real, but it's there's a whole different

442
00:26:45,759 --> 00:26:51,920
dynamic to it that's terrifying. But uh, but no, the

443
00:26:52,319 --> 00:26:54,599
dream I had about my dad was not like that

444
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,720
the dream I had about my dad. And it's funny too,

445
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,920
because I saw John when I saw Joe on Friday night.

446
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:02,680
This was the next day after I'd had the dream.

447
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:05,039
I said to John, I said, well, you were right.

448
00:27:05,839 --> 00:27:07,680
My dad did come to visit me in my dream

449
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,920
and it was terrifying. And he said, yeah, he was

450
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,519
probably angry with you because that's what happened. Because he said,

451
00:27:13,519 --> 00:27:16,200
that's what happened to me. My dad came to visit

452
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:18,759
me in my dreams, and he was angry with me

453
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:23,359
at first, and eventually he wasn't. And I said, oh, great,

454
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:24,920
So there's probably going to be more of this. He

455
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:33,279
said probably so anyway, so that that kind of that's

456
00:27:33,319 --> 00:27:35,640
part of why I'm doing this now. I gotta get

457
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:41,200
this out. So, uh, let's go back a little bit.

458
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:45,799
So I want to talk about my dad, growing up

459
00:27:45,839 --> 00:27:54,279
with him, and I am going to because inevitably someone's

460
00:27:54,319 --> 00:27:57,839
going to wonder, yes, I am going to also address

461
00:27:59,319 --> 00:28:05,480
the comp occasions that arose in our relationship in more

462
00:28:05,519 --> 00:28:10,000
recent years, partly because again it has to do it

463
00:28:10,039 --> 00:28:11,799
has to do with my show, it has to do

464
00:28:11,839 --> 00:28:15,119
with Matt Connorton. Unleashed and the previous version of the show,

465
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:17,759
back when the show was on, when we were on

466
00:28:17,799 --> 00:28:21,680
Afternoon Drive on WM and H weekdays from four to

467
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:24,480
six pm Monday through Friday, we were Afternoon Drive, and

468
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,359
that iteration of the show. It was we had musical

469
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,279
guests like we do now, but we also did a

470
00:28:31,319 --> 00:28:37,440
lot of politics, and Dad and I had disagreements about that.

471
00:28:38,119 --> 00:28:43,240
But so I will address that. That's kind of the

472
00:28:43,319 --> 00:28:45,720
uncomfortable part. But it's also the elephant in the room,

473
00:28:45,799 --> 00:28:48,079
and it is part of the story, you know, and

474
00:28:48,359 --> 00:28:50,519
I'll do so not to be I'll get into it

475
00:28:50,559 --> 00:28:52,200
not to be critical of my father, but I just

476
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,519
want to just tell you the whole story, give you

477
00:28:54,559 --> 00:28:58,480
the whole picture of my dad. But when I was

478
00:28:58,519 --> 00:29:00,920
a kid, So my parents split up when I was

479
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,279
very young. My mom and my dad divorced. I think

480
00:29:04,319 --> 00:29:07,720
I was probably six years old, maybe seven now, I

481
00:29:07,759 --> 00:29:10,039
think I was probably six. I'm not sure exactly, though

482
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,920
we were living and conquered at the time. My mother

483
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:20,079
moved to Manchester. My mother moved to an apartment that

484
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,119
I can actually see, so weird, I can actually see

485
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:30,720
from here. But so she lived in Manchester for a

486
00:29:30,799 --> 00:29:35,880
short time, and then she ended up moving back to Chicago, Illinois,

487
00:29:37,119 --> 00:29:42,279
where she grew up, and that was kind of that

488
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:44,519
was hard, you know, when my dad told me that

489
00:29:44,559 --> 00:29:49,680
my mom was moving, that was a hard thing to hear.

490
00:29:50,319 --> 00:29:54,039
But it kind of worked out because what happened was,

491
00:29:54,039 --> 00:29:56,440
so my mother moved back there. Per the custody I

492
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,039
should clarify something. Per the custody agreement, my dad had

493
00:29:59,079 --> 00:30:03,039
primary custody and my mother had secondary custody, if that's

494
00:30:03,079 --> 00:30:05,720
the right term. So what would happen, which is unusual,

495
00:30:05,759 --> 00:30:11,000
by the way, even at that time, Usually mothers would

496
00:30:11,039 --> 00:30:13,519
get if somebody was going to get primary custody, it

497
00:30:13,519 --> 00:30:17,680
was going to be the mother, but not in this case.

498
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,920
And we won't get into all that why that's another

499
00:30:21,119 --> 00:30:22,880
side street that we're not going to take right now.

500
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,960
But so my dad had primary custody, which meant my

501
00:30:28,079 --> 00:30:31,200
mother had me every other weekend. So every other weekend

502
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,839
I would come to Manchester and stay with my mother,

503
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,480
you know, on Friday night after school, come to Manchester,

504
00:30:39,559 --> 00:30:41,240
and then she would return me to my dad on

505
00:30:41,319 --> 00:30:46,920
Sunday evening every other weekend. So that changed when my

506
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,200
mother decided she was moving back to Illinois, so now

507
00:30:50,799 --> 00:30:53,359
the new thing was, obviously I wasn't going to see

508
00:30:53,359 --> 00:30:54,759
her every other weekend. That's a lot of back and

509
00:30:54,799 --> 00:30:56,839
forth to Chicago, Illinois. So now the new thing was

510
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:58,599
I was going to go spend the summers with her,

511
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,960
so basically July and I guess when school was out,

512
00:31:02,359 --> 00:31:05,480
I would be uh spend those uh those months uh

513
00:31:05,599 --> 00:31:10,279
in uh Chicago with my mom. Uh, which was great actually,

514
00:31:10,559 --> 00:31:14,400
so you know, kind of worked out. Both my parents remarried. Uh.

515
00:31:14,599 --> 00:31:19,160
My mother, uh, if I have all my facts correct,

516
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:26,400
has been married and divorced four times. My father has

517
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:31,640
been married and divorced twice. Uh that we know about.

518
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:37,039
That's another story, not even really a story because we

519
00:31:37,079 --> 00:31:39,359
know so little about the what may have been my

520
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,640
dad's third marriage that he kept a secret. Really is

521
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:45,599
no story there to tell because we don't know. I'm

522
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:50,839
not sure. But so that's that's kind of what how

523
00:31:50,839 --> 00:31:59,640
that worked out. So so then my father is the reason.

524
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:05,160
I think maybe it would have happened anyway even without

525
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:06,960
my dad's influence, but I doubt it. The reason that

526
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,200
I became so interested in politics because for anyone who

527
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:13,920
knows me, I've been a lifelong political junkie. I like

528
00:32:14,039 --> 00:32:19,200
to say, only half joking, that I became interested in

529
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:25,559
politics at an unhealthy young age, but I did from

530
00:32:25,599 --> 00:32:29,559
a very young age. I was fascinated by politics and

531
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,000
my father when I was growing up. So my dad

532
00:32:34,039 --> 00:32:36,799
had a friend. His best friend was named Dan, Dan Jordan,

533
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:40,160
and Dan would come to the house a lot, and

534
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:45,839
my father and Dan would have these long, wide ranging

535
00:32:46,319 --> 00:32:51,079
political discussions and I would just sit there and listen

536
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,839
to them, and I could listen to them for hours.

537
00:32:54,039 --> 00:32:56,039
They would just go on and on, and I was

538
00:32:56,319 --> 00:32:59,559
fascinated by all of it. And I believe it is

539
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:04,200
that my exposure to that why I grew up to

540
00:33:04,279 --> 00:33:10,200
be such a political junkie. Myself, my father at that time,

541
00:33:10,319 --> 00:33:12,640
and those of you who got to know my dad

542
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,839
through the radio show more recently might be surprised to

543
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:20,519
hear this, But my dad back then was a Democrat

544
00:33:21,759 --> 00:33:26,400
and his friend Dan was a Republican, and that was

545
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,920
part of what made those conversations so interesting. And they

546
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:36,359
would disagree on many things, probably most things, but they

547
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,599
had such interesting and constructive conversations, and they never argued,

548
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,119
like nobody ever raised their voice or anything, you know,

549
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:45,400
And they got along wonderfully and they were great friends,

550
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,599
but they would really go deep in these conversations and

551
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,079
talk about the things where they disagreed. And I remember,

552
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,160
I'm really aging myself here, but you know, Dan was

553
00:33:55,519 --> 00:34:01,000
a big fan of Ronald Reagan, and my father despised Ronald. Again,

554
00:34:01,839 --> 00:34:03,480
not what you might expect if you only got to

555
00:34:03,519 --> 00:34:07,759
know my dad in recent years. But the only thing

556
00:34:07,799 --> 00:34:10,119
I can think of that my dad agreed with Reagan

557
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:14,800
on was abortion. Because my dad, despite being a Democrat

558
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:17,559
and from what I recall, being pretty liberal when I

559
00:34:17,639 --> 00:34:24,599
was growing up, he did always oppose abortion. He because he,

560
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:27,440
you know, he was a devout Catholic and so he

561
00:34:27,519 --> 00:34:29,440
seemed to kind of side with the church on that.

562
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:36,000
But that that was the only thing he agreed with

563
00:34:36,039 --> 00:34:38,559
Reagan on. And you know, and and he you know,

564
00:34:38,599 --> 00:34:42,840
he didn't like uh, he certainly didn't like George H. W.

565
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,480
Bush much better. And he was furious about the Iraq War.

566
00:34:46,559 --> 00:34:48,400
And I mean the you know, the first well not

567
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,119
the not the Iraq War that happened during the w administration.

568
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,840
He wasn't a fan of that either. But but you know,

569
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:56,360
when we went in to Kuwait to kick out Saddam,

570
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,960
to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. He was very angry

571
00:35:00,079 --> 00:35:06,280
about that at the time. I even remember, I even

572
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:10,199
remember when when you know, the Democrats were voting to

573
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,960
not allow the President to have authorization to go into Iraq.

574
00:35:15,039 --> 00:35:19,400
I remember my dad and I watching that on c SPAN. Yeah,

575
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:22,320
I know, the most politically nerdy thing ever, actually watching

576
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:24,199
something on c SPAN and my dad making a comment

577
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:25,320
to me at the time. He said, you got to

578
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:28,199
be proud of the Democrats, Mattie. They're really called me, Maddie,

579
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:29,840
he said, you know, they're they're really on the right

580
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:31,599
side of this, you know, because they were trying to

581
00:35:31,639 --> 00:35:34,480
they were trying to prevent George H. W. Bush from

582
00:35:34,559 --> 00:35:40,559
sending troops into Kuwait to kick out Saddam. Operation Operation

583
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:45,239
Desert Shield or Desert Storm. I'm sorry, it was Desert

584
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,280
Shield and then it became Desert Storm. Uh yeah, my

585
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,559
dad was a post all of that. I don't get

586
00:35:51,559 --> 00:35:54,199
me wrong. It was a spectacularly successful mission in terms

587
00:35:54,199 --> 00:35:57,039
of how how quick it was, uh getting a rack

588
00:35:57,079 --> 00:36:00,159
out of Kuwait and uh with yeah, I mean, was

589
00:36:00,159 --> 00:36:02,880
it a few days? I mean it was fast, But

590
00:36:03,159 --> 00:36:05,239
that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do,

591
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:10,599
necessarily in terms of our own interests and so forth.

592
00:36:10,639 --> 00:36:15,239
But basically, so my dad was when I was growing up.

593
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,880
You know, he was a Democrat. Now that's there's reasons

594
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:25,719
why that is relevant. So and my mother too, my mom,

595
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,360
although my mother definitely to the left of my dad.

596
00:36:28,519 --> 00:36:31,920
My mother was very liberal when I was growing up

597
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:34,239
and still is to this day. She has not changed.

598
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:40,519
My father did. But because because he and Dan had

599
00:36:40,559 --> 00:36:43,280
all those amazing conversations that I was so riveted by,

600
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:50,480
I grew up being very interested in politics and that continued,

601
00:36:50,679 --> 00:36:57,159
of course continues to this day, although lately it's I

602
00:36:57,159 --> 00:37:02,079
don't love it like I used to. We won't get

603
00:37:02,119 --> 00:37:12,719
in all of that. But during you know, after you know,

604
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,719
well during during adulthood. You know, obviously I wasn't living

605
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:18,800
at home anymore, but my dad and I would get

606
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,119
together for lunch occasionally, usually like once every month or

607
00:37:22,159 --> 00:37:24,559
once every two months. We were both very busy, but

608
00:37:24,679 --> 00:37:29,920
we would we would get together at Johnson's Dairy Bar

609
00:37:30,079 --> 00:37:31,840
for a long time because I was living in Conquered,

610
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:36,199
he was living in Dover and Johnson's Dairy Bar. For

611
00:37:36,199 --> 00:37:38,599
people who know, the area in Northwood, New Hampshire is

612
00:37:38,639 --> 00:37:41,079
kind of the halfway point between you know, between us.

613
00:37:41,079 --> 00:37:44,599
So we would meet there on a Sunday afternoon and

614
00:37:44,679 --> 00:37:49,559
have lunch, and I always looked forward to having because

615
00:37:49,599 --> 00:37:52,679
that was the thing that binded us together, That bound

616
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,559
us together, I should say bind it bound us together

617
00:37:58,079 --> 00:38:04,480
was our love and fascination with politics. And I always

618
00:38:04,679 --> 00:38:07,360
loved talking about because that's that's what we would talk

619
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:09,360
about the whole time. We would talk about music too,

620
00:38:11,639 --> 00:38:14,920
and I'll get into that too, because I it's fun

621
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:17,920
to talk about my dad when talking about music, because

622
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:22,480
my dad was always current, I said when he you know,

623
00:38:22,519 --> 00:38:25,199
when I posted about this on social media when he died.

624
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:27,960
You know, my father was the only man in his

625
00:38:28,119 --> 00:38:31,599
seventies I knew who still listened to college radio, specifically

626
00:38:31,679 --> 00:38:34,480
because he wanted to hear new music and not get

627
00:38:34,519 --> 00:38:36,960
stuck listening to you know, he never got stuck in

628
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,840
a certain time period like like most people do. But

629
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,039
but the main thing we would talk about was politics,

630
00:38:43,079 --> 00:38:45,800
and I always looked forward to those conversations and always

631
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,320
cherished those discussions because it was always interesting whether we

632
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:52,159
agreed or disagreed, and we would disagree on some things

633
00:38:52,639 --> 00:38:56,840
and I did notice, I did notice. I had to

634
00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:01,320
take a sip of something here this cold, dry air

635
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:03,800
we have all this cold weather, and now the storm

636
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:11,280
is brutal. I did notice my dad was did appear

637
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:16,400
to be incrementally but he did appear to be moving rightward.

638
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:18,480
He was not as liberal as he had once been,

639
00:39:18,599 --> 00:39:23,079
and he seemed to he seemed to be becoming more conservative. Now.

640
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:28,239
We continued to have great conversations, though, because he and

641
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:30,639
I could disagree on things, and we still agreed on

642
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:32,840
some things to a point, right, but we could also

643
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:39,639
disagree on things and and and still have a really

644
00:39:39,639 --> 00:39:43,039
interesting discussion. In some ways, I felt at the time

645
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:46,519
that it made our discussions even more interesting, because you know,

646
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:51,000
people sitting around agreeing with each other, that's that's fine,

647
00:39:51,199 --> 00:39:55,119
But sometimes it's more intellectually stimulating to have a conversation

648
00:39:55,159 --> 00:39:58,360
with someone about something you know that you disagree about

649
00:39:58,559 --> 00:40:02,679
right and exchange those ideas and those thoughts. So I

650
00:40:02,679 --> 00:40:06,840
didn't mind. I mean, I was surprised by it, given

651
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:08,599
how liberal he was when I was growing up, But

652
00:40:09,119 --> 00:40:12,320
you know whatever, I mean. I think there was a

653
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:15,400
period where he and I were both technically independence neither

654
00:40:15,559 --> 00:40:17,960
you know, not registered with either party, so we still

655
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:21,719
had that in common. But but he you know, he

656
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:29,719
was shifting. He was shifting. But then I'll tell you what,

657
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:33,920
So there was a specific moment. When was the Oberfell decision?

658
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,280
What year? I'm bad when it comes to time. It

659
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:45,039
was during Obama? Wait? Was that? Was that twenty fifteen?

660
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:52,679
I thought it was earlier than that. Was that really

661
00:40:52,719 --> 00:41:00,000
twenty fifteen? Okay? For some reason I thought it was

662
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:03,159
longer ago than that. I mean, well, that's eleven years.

663
00:41:03,159 --> 00:41:09,559
But our conversation about the Oberfell decision stood out to

664
00:41:09,639 --> 00:41:13,800
me because because we got we had lunch, like right

665
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:18,000
after this happened right right after the Oberfell decision in

666
00:41:18,039 --> 00:41:22,920
the Supreme Court Oberfell versus Hodges, which effectively is was

667
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:27,719
the Supreme Court decision, landmark decision that legalized same sex

668
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:33,320
marriage nationwide. Prior to that, leading up to that, individual states.

669
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:37,800
Proud to say, New Hampshire was one of them, individual

670
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,800
states with a lot of Republicans on board with it,

671
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,400
by the way, which is interesting. You wouldn't expect that necessarily,

672
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:47,880
but at the time there were enough Republicans who voted

673
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,840
with Democrats in New Hampshire to legalize same sex marriage

674
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:55,840
here in New Hampshire. You know, on Libertarians and so forth,

675
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:58,440
But so we were ahead of the curve here on that.

676
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:06,800
But finally, in twenty fifteen, the Supreme Court, in that decision,

677
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:12,719
effectively legalized same sex marriage nationally. So my father I

678
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:15,800
wasn't sure how he was going to feel about it.

679
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:17,400
I knew we were going to talk about it on

680
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:19,440
my way to have lunch with him that way, and

681
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:21,480
I was kind of but I was actually looking forward

682
00:42:21,519 --> 00:42:24,679
to to the conversation because again I thought he might disagree.

683
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:28,000
As a devout Catholic man, I do think he was

684
00:42:28,039 --> 00:42:32,480
originally supportive of civil unions, though if I'm not mistaken

685
00:42:32,639 --> 00:42:35,000
originally now he might have changed his mind about that

686
00:42:35,119 --> 00:42:37,639
later on too, But I think originally he was supportive

687
00:42:37,679 --> 00:42:42,119
of civil unions, but I suspected, because of his Catholicism

688
00:42:42,159 --> 00:42:44,599
that he wasn't going to go that way on this.

689
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:47,440
So I thought we might disagree on it. But again

690
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:49,679
I was still looking forward to the conversation though, because

691
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:51,400
I thought this will be interesting, you know, and we

692
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:57,920
can hear each other's perspectives. And I always always have

693
00:42:58,039 --> 00:43:01,320
been I've been consistent on this, consider myself a staunch

694
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,360
LGBTQ plus ally, so I thought it was great. I

695
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:09,280
was very pleased with the Oberfel decision. I felt like

696
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:13,239
it was about time. It's funny. I do remember when

697
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,559
I was a kid asking my mother once. I had

698
00:43:16,559 --> 00:43:18,639
a conversation with my mom when I was a kid

699
00:43:18,679 --> 00:43:20,679
about I said, you know, Mom, how come gay people

700
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:24,760
can't get married? And her response was you know, She

701
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:26,679
said something like, you know, because she was always pretty

702
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,360
liberal anyway, she said, well, Maddie, you know, hopefully someday

703
00:43:29,679 --> 00:43:31,840
they will be able to, you know, because everyone should

704
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:35,400
have the same rights. And I don't know if I

705
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,159
had asked my dad that same question, the devout Catholic

706
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,559
man that he was, if he would have responded that way.

707
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:42,719
He might have, actually, because again he was a lot

708
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:45,079
more liberal when I was a kid, but never as

709
00:43:45,119 --> 00:43:47,039
liberal as my mother, so he might not have. But

710
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:53,199
I do think he supported civil unions though. But the

711
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:57,320
reason this conversation specifically stands out in my mind was

712
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,559
it was the first time, or in a political conversation,

713
00:44:01,679 --> 00:44:05,880
that I remembered seeing a bit of a flash of

714
00:44:06,039 --> 00:44:10,880
anger toward me from my father. And it was brief,

715
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:14,199
like I said, a flash of anger. It was brief,

716
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:19,159
but it struck me. I was surprised by it because

717
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:23,639
up to that point, he'd never been he'd never shown

718
00:44:23,679 --> 00:44:27,679
any anger toward me for disagreeing with him on something.

719
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:32,000
But I remember he said, and he brought it up,

720
00:44:32,039 --> 00:44:36,199
he said, you know, this Oberfell decision. And part of

721
00:44:36,199 --> 00:44:37,800
why he might have been mad is he said something

722
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:39,440
that made me kind of chuckle a little bit, and

723
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:40,960
I think that might have been what set him off.

724
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:44,920
But I remember this, He goes, Maddie, this Oberfell decision.

725
00:44:45,079 --> 00:44:50,760
They've effectively just legalized sodomy nationwide. And I thought that

726
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:52,480
was such an odd way of putting it, and it

727
00:44:52,519 --> 00:44:54,239
did make me kind of maybe I smirked or I

728
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:58,360
don't know if I chuckled, but and you know, because

729
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:00,719
he said that and I didn't get a chance to

730
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:02,519
even get the words out, what I was thinking is,

731
00:45:02,599 --> 00:45:05,840
well that I think sodomy was already legal, right, I

732
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,800
mean maybe maybe technically in some southern states they still

733
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:13,639
have blue laws, you know, yeah, no sodomy on Sundays

734
00:45:13,679 --> 00:45:16,800
before eleven am or whatever the hell. But but you know,

735
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:18,920
I thought it was such an odd way of putting

736
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:20,440
it that I think I think I might have smirked

737
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:24,199
at him, not meaning to, but and I remember he goes, Oh,

738
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,840
you can make fun of me, but this is serious business, Matt.

739
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:31,039
This is serious, and he was and he was pissed again.

740
00:45:31,079 --> 00:45:33,039
It wasn't long, like I said, It was a flash

741
00:45:33,039 --> 00:45:36,440
of anger. And then he got past it, and I just,

742
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:38,559
you know, and I told him my side of it.

743
00:45:38,599 --> 00:45:41,519
I said, look, I just I've always believed that, you know,

744
00:45:41,639 --> 00:45:44,159
civil unions didn't go far enough. It was a good idea,

745
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,320
but here's the problems with it. And I think that

746
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:51,039
everyone should have the same rights. Even Dick Cheney believed that.

747
00:45:51,079 --> 00:45:52,639
By the way, that was the one the one thing

748
00:45:52,679 --> 00:45:55,079
Dick Cheney was always liberal on was same sex marriage.

749
00:45:55,079 --> 00:45:57,039
But you know, he had a gay daughter. You know,

750
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:02,719
Rob Portman, very very conservative senator who had a gay son,

751
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:07,679
has a gay son. Rob Portman's not dead and conservative

752
00:46:07,679 --> 00:46:09,360
on everything else if you look at his voting record,

753
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:11,519
but always supported same sex marriage. So I guess if

754
00:46:11,519 --> 00:46:13,719
you have an actual gay person in your family, the

755
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:19,480
ideas and so strange and bizarre to you. But as

756
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:21,639
far as I know, those are the only conservatives who

757
00:46:21,639 --> 00:46:23,079
ever support gay marriage, as far as I know, are

758
00:46:23,079 --> 00:46:25,159
the ones who actually have a gay person in their families,

759
00:46:26,079 --> 00:46:27,880
then they're able to work up a little bit of empathy.

760
00:46:28,119 --> 00:46:32,280
But anyway, but I remember being really struck by that.

761
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:34,679
It's like, Wow, my Dad's never gotten angry with me

762
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:43,400
like that before during a political conversation. So so then,

763
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:47,800
you know, that was twenty fifteen, so we all know

764
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:52,559
what happened. Not long after that, Trump gets in and

765
00:46:53,079 --> 00:46:58,960
my father, who had been resistant to technology for so long,

766
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:05,199
finally got acquainted with texting and he would text me

767
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:09,239
things and surprise, I was surprised. He seemed to be

768
00:47:10,519 --> 00:47:16,000
going pretty full maga and he seemed to really like Trump. Now.

769
00:47:16,519 --> 00:47:19,760
Another weird memory though that I have from when I

770
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:23,519
was a kid, Trump was on the cover of I

771
00:47:23,599 --> 00:47:25,880
want to say it was Newsweek. It was one of

772
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:29,280
the news publications that we got at home that I

773
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:31,039
loved to read because again, there was a lot of

774
00:47:31,079 --> 00:47:34,119
politics in them. I think it was Newsweek that had

775
00:47:34,159 --> 00:47:36,719
Trump on the cover. This was like, this would have

776
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:38,360
been again I'm aging myself, but this would have been

777
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,239
nineteen eighty something and it had Trump on the cover.

778
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:44,800
It was during when when Trump was buying up casinos

779
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:48,360
in Atlantic City or whatever, and so he was, you know,

780
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:50,320
he was in the public eye quite a bit. Trump

781
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:54,400
was was a celebrity long before he was president, and

782
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,000
I remember my dad kind of mocking him and talking about,

783
00:47:57,079 --> 00:47:58,760
you know, saying things like, you know, this is the

784
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,599
face of greed and whatnot, and talking about how he

785
00:48:01,599 --> 00:48:03,400
didn't think Donald Trump was a good guy and whatnot.

786
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:05,440
And then here we are, you know, a few decades later,

787
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:09,079
and Dad's on the Trump train, and it was strange

788
00:48:09,079 --> 00:48:16,360
to me. So then in twenty so, I was already

789
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:21,280
doing political content and had been for a long time.

790
00:48:22,159 --> 00:48:24,960
Matt Connorton unleashed this version of the show that I'm

791
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:29,639
doing right now. Actually started as a podcast in twenty eleven.

792
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:37,079
Then in April of twenty seventeen, I had the opportunity

793
00:48:37,159 --> 00:48:40,440
to bring the show to WMNH now You're in Manchester.

794
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:45,400
And at that point it was a two hour show.

795
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:49,400
We were doing after drive, so I was on weekday

796
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:52,239
afternoons from four to six pm, and you know, we

797
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,480
always had some musical guests, but it was mostly politics

798
00:48:56,519 --> 00:48:58,559
at that point. So and I was trying to do

799
00:48:58,599 --> 00:49:06,320
something different because political talk radio is very heavily dominated

800
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:12,079
by conservatives. So what I was trying to do is

801
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,320
not not be like the the you know, just you know,

802
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:20,000
a token liberal on the radio. You know, I was

803
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:21,679
trying to but I was trying to bring some balance

804
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:24,280
to it. And and you know, I would have conservative

805
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:26,679
guests on the show and have conversations and I would

806
00:49:27,199 --> 00:49:29,840
uh take calls from anybody who wanted to talk really

807
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:33,360
so so I I you know, I was coming from,

808
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:35,719
you know, being on the left. I had a particular

809
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,679
point of view, and it you know, it's it's opinion journalism.

810
00:49:38,679 --> 00:49:42,119
It's you know, just like a conservative show. I express

811
00:49:42,199 --> 00:49:46,480
my opinions and with the possible exception of the Second

812
00:49:46,519 --> 00:49:49,320
Amendment because I am in New Hampshire and uh, you

813
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,599
know that that's the one issue where I'm definitely not liberal.

814
00:49:52,599 --> 00:49:55,079
But you know, for the most part, I'm a pretty

815
00:49:55,159 --> 00:49:58,159
left leaning guy. And and I would be very open

816
00:49:58,159 --> 00:50:04,639
with my opinions and and all my my my thoughts

817
00:50:04,639 --> 00:50:06,639
on it. Oh. By the way, Texas Mike is in

818
00:50:06,679 --> 00:50:09,840
the chat room and says, love you, Matt, appreciating a

819
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,639
part of your show. Thank you, Texas Mike. Yes, Texas

820
00:50:12,679 --> 00:50:17,360
Mike also his government name Michael Martineau. He used to

821
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:21,119
appear when I was on in Afternoon Drive. Texas Mike

822
00:50:21,119 --> 00:50:23,119
would appear on my show on a regular basis. That's

823
00:50:23,119 --> 00:50:27,360
actually where the Texas mic persona came from, was him

824
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:28,960
being on my show and we just have a lot

825
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:34,679
of fun. But love you too, Mikey. But so when

826
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:36,800
I started on WM and AH in twenty seventeen, so

827
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:41,199
it was very heavy on the politics, and eventually my

828
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:47,239
dad started calling into the show. He started to I

829
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:49,719
don't think he had ever listened to the podcast version

830
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:52,000
of the show up to that. I don't think it

831
00:50:52,079 --> 00:50:55,199
was on until I was on FM radio that he

832
00:50:55,480 --> 00:51:02,039
really started paying attention to what I was doing and

833
00:51:02,119 --> 00:51:07,840
the things that I was saying and all of it.

834
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:13,920
And he he had gone pretty hard MAGA by this point.

835
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:18,559
So he would call in and he would disagree with

836
00:51:18,599 --> 00:51:24,320
me on things, and he would ramble. It's hard to

837
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:28,840
get a word in. But I always showed him more

838
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:33,199
latitude with that than I would with anybody else because

839
00:51:33,679 --> 00:51:38,360
it's my dad and I love him. And even though

840
00:51:38,639 --> 00:51:41,719
he would be calling and saying things, I mean, some

841
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:45,280
of the things he would say, some of it would

842
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:50,599
even you know, would get pretty wild, not just you know,

843
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:55,440
typical conservative talking points, mega talking points, but sometimes he

844
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,000
would veer off into conspiracy theories, and I know a

845
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:02,239
lot of mega people are also conspiracy theorists, but he would,

846
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:04,599
he would get he would go in some directions where

847
00:52:04,599 --> 00:52:07,639
I was like, jeez, really, but again I would I

848
00:52:07,639 --> 00:52:11,400
would let him say his peace, because he's my dad.

849
00:52:11,559 --> 00:52:15,400
And if there's one person I'm not going to interrupt

850
00:52:15,559 --> 00:52:19,039
talk over Muta's mute the audio whatever, it's my dad.

851
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:23,679
Because even though I didn't like what he was saying

852
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:27,199
and didn't agree with it, and even though it was

853
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:31,760
hard to have an actual conversation while he was rambling,

854
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:37,000
because I would have preferred that an actual back and

855
00:52:37,079 --> 00:52:39,719
forth dialogue, but a lot at the time he just

856
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:43,000
couldn't do it. He just he'd start going and it

857
00:52:43,079 --> 00:52:47,400
was like it was the Martin Connerton Show now, which

858
00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:53,639
could be frustrating, but all that aside, part of me

859
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:58,960
just just loved that. My dad is who got me

860
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:03,079
interested in politics, and the first place is interested enough.

861
00:53:04,079 --> 00:53:06,199
I don't know if he ever called other shows, but

862
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:09,199
he was interested enough in what I was doing and

863
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:10,880
wanted to be a part of it in some way,

864
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:15,519
and and was calling in. And it's not like he

865
00:53:15,559 --> 00:53:17,119
called in all the time, but but he called in

866
00:53:17,199 --> 00:53:20,599
often enough that listeners began to get acquainted with my dad.

867
00:53:21,079 --> 00:53:24,000
And then when my dad became active on social media,

868
00:53:24,719 --> 00:53:27,199
listeners began to get even more acquainted with my dad

869
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:33,400
and established relationships with him, parasocial relationships with my dad online.

870
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:36,880
And I did like that because, you know, I would

871
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:39,159
get text messages from my dad, you know, where he

872
00:53:39,159 --> 00:53:41,599
would say things like, you know, I disagree with you

873
00:53:41,679 --> 00:53:44,920
on a lot of your positions, Matt, But you know,

874
00:53:45,079 --> 00:53:48,079
but I'm but I'm proud of you for using that

875
00:53:48,119 --> 00:53:50,639
platform to say what you think. And and you do

876
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:54,239
engage in dialogue. You don't. You don't hang up on people,

877
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:56,519
you don't say you know you only want to talk

878
00:53:56,519 --> 00:53:59,599
to people who agree with you. You actually engage in dialogue,

879
00:53:59,599 --> 00:54:01,800
which I did. You know, I love to do that.

880
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:04,599
I enjoy talking with people I disagree with not as

881
00:54:04,679 --> 00:54:06,880
much as I used to, because now we live in

882
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:08,559
a time where it seems like a lot of the

883
00:54:08,599 --> 00:54:12,679
people I disagree with are existing on a different plane

884
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:15,000
of reality, where we can literally look at the exact

885
00:54:15,039 --> 00:54:17,440
same thing and have such a different interpretation of events.

886
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:20,480
It's almost like, you know, that's why I don't like

887
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,440
argue with flat earthers, for example, It's like, what's the

888
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:27,519
point they exist on a different plane of reality, and

889
00:54:27,639 --> 00:54:29,400
it is very much a plane to them. It's certainly

890
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:31,760
not a globe of reality. It's a plane of reality. Right,

891
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:34,000
So it's like why even bother you know, It's like

892
00:54:34,679 --> 00:54:37,679
they're not living in reality. So what am I gonna

893
00:54:38,039 --> 00:54:41,199
debate them about. There's a lot of people I won't

894
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:45,199
bother with for that reason. You know, if if if

895
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:48,400
you exist in a completely different dimension than I do,

896
00:54:48,559 --> 00:54:50,719
then what do we have to talk about. I'm here

897
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:54,280
on Earth one. If you're on on Earth too, you know,

898
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:55,880
talk to other people who are living with you on

899
00:54:55,880 --> 00:55:00,760
Earth too, you know, leave me out of it. That's

900
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:07,000
kind of my uh, that's kind of my thing. But

901
00:55:07,719 --> 00:55:09,320
so I got a kick out of it. I like

902
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:10,719
there was a part of me that enjoyed. And then

903
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:12,800
my dad would send me text messages and he would say,

904
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:15,559
you know, I don't agree with what you said about this.

905
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:17,320
I think you're wrong about this. I think you're wrong

906
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:19,400
about that. I think you're wrong about these other ten things.

907
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:21,920
But I like the way you do your show. I

908
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:25,119
like the way you have dialogue. I love this is

909
00:55:25,119 --> 00:55:27,679
the part where he was always very positive right till

910
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:29,679
the end. He was always very positive about this, he said,

911
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:31,760
and I love the musical guests that you have on

912
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:35,119
the show, because again, my dad loved to hear new music.

913
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:38,480
That was something where he was unwaveringly supportive with me

914
00:55:39,039 --> 00:55:41,800
was my support of independent and unsigned artists in the

915
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:44,159
music scene and local artists in the music scene. He

916
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:48,440
was always very very supportive on that cause, again, like

917
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:52,079
I said earlier, my dad loved hearing new music. You know.

918
00:55:52,159 --> 00:55:54,920
It's like I said before, if you got into a

919
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,320
car with my dad, you would not hear an oldies

920
00:55:58,559 --> 00:56:01,719
station on the radio, not not no, you would hear

921
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:03,960
whatever college radio station was in range. You know, he

922
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:05,559
lived on the Sea coast. He loved to listen to

923
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:08,719
w u n H, the great college station there, because

924
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:11,400
he loved hearing new music, you know, he and he

925
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:14,239
loved having access. That's something he learned to really love

926
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:17,119
about the Internet, is having access to even though he

927
00:56:17,159 --> 00:56:19,840
was a little technophobic, as as a lot of boomers are,

928
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:23,119
but he loved having access to you know, all this music,

929
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:26,440
just anything you want to hear you can find. You know,

930
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:31,920
he loved it. He thought it was great. You know.

931
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:34,800
He certainly loved and appreciated the music of his youth,

932
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:38,159
of his youth. But he never got stuck there. He

933
00:56:38,239 --> 00:56:43,280
never got stuck there. You know. My dad is the

934
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:49,039
reason that indirectly that Kiss became my all time favorite band,

935
00:56:49,679 --> 00:56:52,440
because when I was a kid, and Kiss was already

936
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:54,920
well out of the makeup at this point, there were

937
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:57,760
it was, this was during the non makeup era. But uh,

938
00:56:58,079 --> 00:57:04,440
you know, I remember this memory very clearly. I was

939
00:57:06,159 --> 00:57:08,639
and I was aware of Kiss already at that point,

940
00:57:08,679 --> 00:57:11,280
but I hadn't really listened to them much. But I

941
00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:14,039
remember being in the living room one afternoon after school

942
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:18,719
and the video for Tears Are Falling from Kiss's Asylum

943
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:22,000
album was on MTV and my dad comes home from

944
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:23,360
work and he kind of pokes his head into the

945
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,719
living room and he says, Maddie, who is that Who

946
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:28,239
does this song? Is that Kiss? And I said, yeah,

947
00:57:28,239 --> 00:57:31,440
it is, It's Kiss. And he said, wow, I really

948
00:57:31,519 --> 00:57:34,719
like this song and I said, yeah, me too. It's

949
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:38,639
like my favorite song right now. So then that was

950
00:57:38,639 --> 00:57:41,480
in October of that year. So then for Christmas he

951
00:57:41,559 --> 00:57:44,320
got me that album. For Christmas, he got me Asylum,

952
00:57:45,039 --> 00:57:47,480
and uh, and then I was hooked. You know. I

953
00:57:47,719 --> 00:57:51,920
think Asylum is a really underrated album, and and that

954
00:57:52,119 --> 00:57:54,800
and Kiss became my favorite band from then on. But

955
00:57:55,119 --> 00:57:57,159
Dad and I, you know, so, we never had that.

956
00:57:57,239 --> 00:58:00,039
We never had that sort of generational thing that so

957
00:58:00,119 --> 00:58:03,039
many people experience with their parents, where their parents are like, oh,

958
00:58:03,119 --> 00:58:05,519
this music you kids are listening to today is garbage.

959
00:58:05,639 --> 00:58:08,880
Dad and I never had that because Dad always enjoyed

960
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:13,440
music that was current. I did tell the story. I

961
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:16,320
think I did tell this on the radio show. But

962
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:21,800
my dad also really loved Van Halen when I was

963
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:26,440
growing up, and I had borrowed the video from a

964
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:31,159
friend of mine, oh, from Bill Zappia Hi, Billy. Billy

965
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:34,079
was like my best friend for a long time growing up.

966
00:58:34,119 --> 00:58:37,280
And now he's a very successful musician, which I always

967
00:58:37,320 --> 00:58:39,480
knew he would be because he was a very talented

968
00:58:39,559 --> 00:58:41,599
musician when I was growing up. Already he was ahead

969
00:58:41,639 --> 00:58:45,719
of everyone else I knew. But Billy had loaned us

970
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:50,400
a Van Halen live VHS tape again I'm aging myself,

971
00:58:51,079 --> 00:58:52,800
called Live Without a Net and it was from the

972
00:58:52,840 --> 00:58:55,440
fifty one to fifty tour and it was a live

973
00:58:55,440 --> 00:59:00,199
concert video and Dad and I watched it together and

974
00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:02,400
this is what I remember. It was a Sunday night.

975
00:59:02,440 --> 00:59:05,199
So it was a school night at school in the morning,

976
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:08,920
and Dad was always pretty insistent that I went to

977
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:10,719
bed on time. He wanted me to be awake and

978
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:15,719
rested for school. Education was important to him, but he'd

979
00:59:15,760 --> 00:59:18,559
make an exception once in a while. So we watch

980
00:59:19,320 --> 00:59:22,159
We watched this. We watched Van Halen Live without an

981
00:59:22,199 --> 00:59:24,880
Ette all the way through. We both really enjoyed it.

982
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:27,480
And then my father says to me at the end

983
00:59:27,559 --> 00:59:32,519
of it, He goes, Maddy, do you want to watch

984
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:34,480
Do you want to watch a little bit of that again?

985
00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:36,960
Like maybe just the first couple of songs. I mean,

986
00:59:37,039 --> 00:59:39,840
he really And this was something Dad and I always

987
00:59:39,880 --> 00:59:44,559
agreed on too, you know, as far as Van Halen goes,

988
00:59:44,559 --> 00:59:48,039
as far as frontmen. You know the great debate David

989
00:59:48,079 --> 00:59:51,280
Lee Roth versus Sammy Hagar. I love them both for

990
00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:54,280
different reasons, but gone to my head, I go with

991
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:58,760
Sammy Hagar. I love Sammy Hagar. I love his voice. Again.

992
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:01,119
Roth is great in his own way for other reasons,

993
01:00:01,119 --> 01:00:04,599
but Sammy's got the pipes and fifty one fifty to

994
01:00:04,639 --> 01:00:06,840
this day is my favorite Van Halen album, Just one

995
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:09,480
great song after another. I love that album. And my

996
01:00:09,599 --> 01:00:12,960
dad was was always of the same mindset, so Dad.

997
01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:14,880
At the end of this, so we watched this live

998
01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:17,039
without an Ette, this live concert video with Sammy Hagar

999
01:00:17,079 --> 01:00:19,079
as the front man, and Dad says to me, do

1000
01:00:19,119 --> 01:00:21,400
you want to watch just watch a little bit of

1001
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:23,360
it again, just the first couple songs maybe, and then

1002
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,519
you got to go to bed, And I said okay.

1003
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:29,880
So we put it on, and I knew, because I

1004
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:32,360
knew my dad well enough, I knew what was about

1005
01:00:32,400 --> 01:00:34,960
to happen. We were going to end up watching the

1006
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:38,159
whole thing again together because there was no way, because

1007
01:00:38,159 --> 01:00:42,320
he'd put himself in a corner here, right because he

1008
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:45,239
says to me, and he must have known too deep

1009
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:47,360
down at least he says to me, you know, we'll

1010
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:48,599
just watch a couple more and then you got to

1011
01:00:48,639 --> 01:00:50,599
go to bed a couple you know, first couple songs.

1012
01:00:51,079 --> 01:00:55,280
But I knew there's no way he's gonna say, Okay, Maddie,

1013
01:00:55,880 --> 01:00:58,000
you should probably get to bed now while we're in

1014
01:00:58,000 --> 01:01:00,079
the middle of watching this. So we ended up watching

1015
01:01:00,119 --> 01:01:03,960
the entire thing second time. I was up like two

1016
01:01:04,039 --> 01:01:07,360
hours past my bedtime, but I knew Dad was going

1017
01:01:07,440 --> 01:01:09,400
to make an exception, and he did, and we watched

1018
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:12,679
the entire the entire show a second time, and that

1019
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:14,559
was a nice memory. I've got a lot of great memories.

1020
01:01:14,639 --> 01:01:16,639
Dad was. Dad was great when I was growing up.

1021
01:01:16,639 --> 01:01:23,840
He was never hit me, rarely, rarely raised his voice

1022
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:26,199
to me. I can't say that he never did, but

1023
01:01:26,199 --> 01:01:29,800
but he would rarely. As my sister Lindsay put it,

1024
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:36,119
he was a very gentle parent and very empathetic and

1025
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:42,199
is responsible for a lot of how I am my

1026
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:46,760
personality today. I'm my mom too. But obviously, like I

1027
01:01:46,920 --> 01:01:49,159
said earlier, I saw a lot less of my mother

1028
01:01:49,199 --> 01:01:50,920
growing up than I did my dad because my dad

1029
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:55,199
had primary custody. But a lot of that my mother

1030
01:01:55,239 --> 01:01:58,199
instilled in me too. But my dad always my dad

1031
01:01:58,239 --> 01:02:00,280
when I was growing up. He was very is this

1032
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:06,440
a good man and and just instilled, you know, values

1033
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:10,280
in me. You know, speak up when when you when

1034
01:02:10,320 --> 01:02:12,519
you see injustice and and when you see things you

1035
01:02:12,519 --> 01:02:14,440
don't like happening in the world, talk about it. Make

1036
01:02:14,519 --> 01:02:18,840
your voice heard. I think there may have been moments

1037
01:02:19,039 --> 01:02:22,639
in very recent times that he might have regretted instilling

1038
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:26,360
some of that in me. I said that half half joking, No,

1039
01:02:26,519 --> 01:02:29,960
but I think you know, in terms of being being

1040
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:33,880
empathetic and patient with people, and having dialogue with people

1041
01:02:33,880 --> 01:02:35,719
and trying to meet people where they are and talk

1042
01:02:35,800 --> 01:02:38,920
things through and all that I definitely got. Again, my

1043
01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:41,159
mother contributed to to that because she's that way too,

1044
01:02:41,719 --> 01:02:45,440
but but I definitely got got got all that from

1045
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:50,559
my dad primarily. So he was a good He was

1046
01:02:50,599 --> 01:02:53,239
a good father growing up. Doesn't mean he didn't make mistakes.

1047
01:02:54,519 --> 01:02:58,480
I have specific memories of odd things that happened or

1048
01:02:58,480 --> 01:03:03,119
that he said or did, but but nothing terrible, you know.

1049
01:03:03,320 --> 01:03:06,719
But but and and those things are far because no

1050
01:03:06,840 --> 01:03:10,079
parent is perfect, right. I'm sure everyone has things that

1051
01:03:10,079 --> 01:03:12,719
they look back on from their childhood and specific moments

1052
01:03:12,719 --> 01:03:16,079
that they think, jeez, mom or dad or maybe both

1053
01:03:16,079 --> 01:03:19,079
of them, they they didn't handle that very well. That

1054
01:03:19,159 --> 01:03:21,599
was strange. We all have well that stuff because no

1055
01:03:21,639 --> 01:03:25,119
parent is perfect. But but my dad was a pretty

1056
01:03:25,119 --> 01:03:28,480
good dad, pretty good dad growing up. I always felt safe

1057
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:31,880
with him, and he instilled a lot of really good

1058
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:37,719
things in me, I think, you know. And and the

1059
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:42,159
two things that that bound us the most were politics

1060
01:03:42,159 --> 01:03:47,039
and music always and and continued to but in kind

1061
01:03:47,079 --> 01:03:50,639
of a different way with the politics part. And like

1062
01:03:50,679 --> 01:03:53,079
I said, I don't. I don't want to just because

1063
01:03:53,079 --> 01:04:00,079
it did. It did finally complicate our relationship in recent years. So,

1064
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:04,920
like I said, when he really started getting sort of

1065
01:04:05,320 --> 01:04:11,039
involved and invested in what I was doing in afternoon

1066
01:04:11,159 --> 01:04:17,760
drive political talk radio. And not right away either. I

1067
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:21,840
started at WM and H in April of twenty seventeen.

1068
01:04:24,559 --> 01:04:27,679
I'm not sure exactly when he started calling the show.

1069
01:04:27,760 --> 01:04:30,280
It wasn't right away, but once he started calling, he called.

1070
01:04:30,360 --> 01:04:34,679
He called fairly often. Sometimes he had a bad habit

1071
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:36,360
of calling right near the end of the show and

1072
01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:38,400
then it's like, Dad, we gotta go, we gotta go,

1073
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:47,559
we gotta go. But there there came a point where

1074
01:04:50,760 --> 01:04:55,480
his criticisms of me in the text messages that he

1075
01:04:55,519 --> 01:04:57,960
would send me or in the voicemails that he would

1076
01:04:58,039 --> 01:05:05,199
leave me occasionally, where they started to go from what

1077
01:05:05,480 --> 01:05:10,199
could be taken as constructive criticism and sort of you know,

1078
01:05:10,360 --> 01:05:15,280
will agree to disagree on this. It really started to shift.

1079
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:19,960
Might have been during COVID, might have been a little after,

1080
01:05:20,079 --> 01:05:22,480
because it took a while for this to really take hold.

1081
01:05:23,199 --> 01:05:28,639
But he started getting aggressive. And again I'm not you know,

1082
01:05:29,079 --> 01:05:33,440
I'm talking about my dad, and you know I'm not

1083
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:35,599
trying to say anything negative. But I also you know,

1084
01:05:35,800 --> 01:05:37,760
but I do want to give the full picture of

1085
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:44,760
everything of him. I think that's fair. And you know,

1086
01:05:45,239 --> 01:05:53,519
this is where our relationship got complicated. I would get

1087
01:05:53,880 --> 01:05:56,840
some text messages from him. I can tell you what

1088
01:05:56,880 --> 01:05:58,880
the height of it was. Well, not the height of

1089
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:04,000
it even but where it really shifted was when roe V.

1090
01:06:04,159 --> 01:06:11,599
Wade was overturned. He got nasty with me about it

1091
01:06:11,639 --> 01:06:24,199
because again, I am unapologetically pro choice, and he knew

1092
01:06:24,199 --> 01:06:28,079
that about me. He always knew that about me, but

1093
01:06:28,360 --> 01:06:30,559
as an again as a devout Catholic man, and like

1094
01:06:30,599 --> 01:06:33,199
I said, when I was a kid and Dad was

1095
01:06:33,280 --> 01:06:37,840
still a liberal O sensibly a liberal Democrat. That was

1096
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:41,599
the one thing where he agreed with conservatives on and

1097
01:06:41,920 --> 01:06:44,639
I think his Catholicism played a big role in that.

1098
01:06:44,639 --> 01:06:49,920
That was the one thing he was always very pro choice.

1099
01:06:50,440 --> 01:06:54,199
So when roe V. Wade was overturned, see again he

1100
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:57,320
knew my position. But now we're talking about it on

1101
01:06:57,360 --> 01:07:00,280
the show and I'm talking about it with other yes,

1102
01:07:00,480 --> 01:07:07,639
and it's it's in his face, right, you know, he knew,

1103
01:07:08,559 --> 01:07:11,320
he knew my position, and my position had never changed

1104
01:07:13,079 --> 01:07:17,199
and his position had never changed. But but I think

1105
01:07:17,280 --> 01:07:21,639
now it was like it was in his face. It

1106
01:07:21,719 --> 01:07:24,519
was it was me saying these things in a very

1107
01:07:24,559 --> 01:07:27,599
public forum and having the support of other people who

1108
01:07:27,599 --> 01:07:35,639
agreed with me in this public forum, and and it

1109
01:07:35,760 --> 01:07:40,360
really upset him. And very few people know this, but

1110
01:07:40,639 --> 01:07:44,159
it got to a point, I mean, he started, he

1111
01:07:44,199 --> 01:07:48,159
started sending me very angry, very angry, aggressive text messages,

1112
01:07:49,880 --> 01:07:52,360
and he sent me at one point, he sent me

1113
01:07:52,400 --> 01:07:59,760
a text message that said, you have become and in

1114
01:08:00,079 --> 01:08:04,599
raised pure evil and I don't know you, and I

1115
01:08:04,599 --> 01:08:08,639
don't know who you are anymore, but you are evil

1116
01:08:08,800 --> 01:08:16,560
and you are not my son. That was probably the meanest,

1117
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:18,880
angriest text messages I ever got from him, and I

1118
01:08:18,920 --> 01:08:21,800
got a lot of angry, mean text messages from him

1119
01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:27,800
in recent years. That was that was probably the height

1120
01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:30,920
of it, though, in terms of just nasty things to

1121
01:08:30,960 --> 01:08:35,960
say to me. And ninety nine percent of the time

1122
01:08:36,159 --> 01:08:39,279
I would not respond to any of that, any of

1123
01:08:39,319 --> 01:08:45,000
his anger, but I did that time, and I just said,

1124
01:08:45,560 --> 01:08:49,880
what a horrible thing to say to your son, whom

1125
01:08:49,960 --> 01:08:54,039
you supposedly love, you know, and for no other reason

1126
01:08:54,079 --> 01:08:58,840
than we disagree politically. A couple of days later, I

1127
01:08:58,880 --> 01:09:02,000
got sort of a half asked apology. But even the

1128
01:09:02,039 --> 01:09:04,000
apology that I got from him was kind of weird

1129
01:09:04,039 --> 01:09:08,399
because he said and maybe apologies being too kind, Maybe

1130
01:09:08,439 --> 01:09:11,359
excuse would be more accurate. But he he said something about,

1131
01:09:12,159 --> 01:09:14,640
but you know, Maddie, I've always been a masculine father,

1132
01:09:14,720 --> 01:09:17,840
and I've always believed in tough love. That's why I

1133
01:09:17,880 --> 01:09:21,439
was being so stern with you. And that was weird too,

1134
01:09:21,600 --> 01:09:23,840
because number one, not only is that not a good

1135
01:09:23,840 --> 01:09:26,159
reason to call me evil and say I'm not your

1136
01:09:26,159 --> 01:09:31,000
son anymore and you don't know me, but also it

1137
01:09:31,079 --> 01:09:34,600
also wasn't true. He wasn't like he wasn't this like

1138
01:09:34,680 --> 01:09:38,800
super masculine father. I mean he was you know, he

1139
01:09:38,920 --> 01:09:44,439
wasn't like a tough you know, tough love kind of

1140
01:09:44,680 --> 01:09:46,960
you know. I mean, he made it sound like he

1141
01:09:47,039 --> 01:09:51,199
was this this tough guy who raised me very strictly

1142
01:09:51,279 --> 01:09:54,079
and sternly and hit me if I got out of

1143
01:09:54,159 --> 01:09:55,680
line and all that. I mean, that's what he made

1144
01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:57,159
it sound like in the text. Well, you know, I've

1145
01:09:57,159 --> 01:10:00,960
always always been a tough dad, a masculine fother It's like, no,

1146
01:10:01,119 --> 01:10:11,279
you weren't. You weren't dad, What are you talking about? No?

1147
01:10:11,439 --> 01:10:14,399
I mean he was a great dad growing up, but

1148
01:10:14,520 --> 01:10:20,159
he wasn't like this, like tough guy. He wasn't one

1149
01:10:20,239 --> 01:10:25,960
of those dads, you know, so that was odd to me.

1150
01:10:27,399 --> 01:10:29,800
But I would get, you know, from time to time

1151
01:10:30,000 --> 01:10:32,159
after that, I would get text messages from him, not

1152
01:10:32,239 --> 01:10:36,600
quite that mean, but he would say things like, you know,

1153
01:10:36,800 --> 01:10:39,600
al he would sort of hint that he was disowning me.

1154
01:10:40,359 --> 01:10:42,920
He would do this thing where he would say, you know,

1155
01:10:43,039 --> 01:10:46,159
you're my son. I'll always I'll always love you, and

1156
01:10:46,199 --> 01:10:49,439
i'll always pray for you, but I need to accept

1157
01:10:50,479 --> 01:10:56,720
that you're just very different, or we're just very different.

1158
01:10:56,760 --> 01:11:01,000
We see the world very different. I mean he would

1159
01:11:01,039 --> 01:11:05,960
say a variation of that before, but originally he would

1160
01:11:05,960 --> 01:11:08,319
say things like, you know, all the great philosophers talk

1161
01:11:08,359 --> 01:11:11,920
about how you know, fathers and sons. You know, sometimes

1162
01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:14,159
they disagree and that's just a part of the dynamic

1163
01:11:14,199 --> 01:11:16,720
and whatnot. But now it was more like, I just

1164
01:11:16,800 --> 01:11:19,359
have to accept that we're well, we disagree. I'll always

1165
01:11:19,359 --> 01:11:22,079
love you and I'll always pray for you, but I

1166
01:11:22,159 --> 01:11:24,159
just don't think I think at one point he said,

1167
01:11:24,159 --> 01:11:25,760
I just don't think there's any point in us talking

1168
01:11:25,800 --> 01:11:34,520
anymore about anything. You know, it's like okay, And I

1169
01:11:34,520 --> 01:11:37,119
would rarely respond to any of that because I didn't

1170
01:11:37,159 --> 01:11:39,079
know what the hell to say to it, to be frank,

1171
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:41,960
And it's one of those things you know now that

1172
01:11:42,000 --> 01:11:44,680
these passed away, it's one of those things that you know,

1173
01:11:44,720 --> 01:11:49,920
those I guess anyone who's lost a parent probably goes

1174
01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:52,600
through this, you know, the regrets and the second guessing

1175
01:11:52,640 --> 01:11:55,560
and the you know, like now I look back and think, well,

1176
01:11:55,600 --> 01:12:01,600
should I have said something when he would say those things?

1177
01:12:01,600 --> 01:12:05,880
Should I have responded with, well, you're my dad and

1178
01:12:05,920 --> 01:12:08,039
I love you no matter what I think. Might I

1179
01:12:08,119 --> 01:12:10,560
might have actually said things like that at some point,

1180
01:12:10,640 --> 01:12:14,760
but but I think a lot of the time I

1181
01:12:14,800 --> 01:12:18,640
didn't because I was just like, again, in pardon my language,

1182
01:12:18,800 --> 01:12:23,359
but I just was like, what the fuck? Why would

1183
01:12:23,399 --> 01:12:25,600
you say? Why would you say these things to me?

1184
01:12:27,439 --> 01:12:31,640
You know, I get it, you're this hardcore maga dude now, uh,

1185
01:12:32,159 --> 01:12:39,239
And I'm not. But you know, I can tell you

1186
01:12:39,359 --> 01:12:46,079
I never once texted him and said, you know, I

1187
01:12:46,119 --> 01:12:53,840
don't know what happened to you, dad, But like, I never,

1188
01:12:54,600 --> 01:12:56,199
at least I don't think I did. I don't think

1189
01:12:56,239 --> 01:13:03,359
I ever was overly judgmental or anything with him. The

1190
01:13:03,399 --> 01:13:06,600
only thing I do remember calling him on something because

1191
01:13:06,640 --> 01:13:10,520
at one point he said to me again in a

1192
01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:12,520
text message, because I wasn't picking up the phone when

1193
01:13:12,520 --> 01:13:15,039
he was calling, I'd let it go to voicemail because

1194
01:13:15,079 --> 01:13:21,279
I just I'd had enough of being you know, if

1195
01:13:21,279 --> 01:13:23,800
you're going to call me to tell me how twisted

1196
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:26,560
and evil you think I am, just because I disagree

1197
01:13:26,560 --> 01:13:28,000
with you politically, I'm not going to pick up your

1198
01:13:28,000 --> 01:13:32,199
call every time. I don't know if you ever understood that,

1199
01:13:33,039 --> 01:13:35,319
And maybe I should have picked up those calls more often. Again,

1200
01:13:35,359 --> 01:13:39,279
it goes back to the you know, the regrets, the

1201
01:13:39,319 --> 01:13:44,960
second guessing, all of it. But but he did at

1202
01:13:44,960 --> 01:13:47,000
one point say to me. I believe it was in

1203
01:13:47,039 --> 01:13:49,680
a text message. He said something like, I don't know

1204
01:13:49,720 --> 01:13:52,279
why you take these positions, Matt. I didn't raise you

1205
01:13:52,920 --> 01:13:57,800
to think that way. And I think I did respond

1206
01:13:57,920 --> 01:14:02,680
to him, and I just said, first of all, yeah,

1207
01:14:02,760 --> 01:14:04,520
it's coming back to me now. I think I said

1208
01:14:04,520 --> 01:14:08,039
two things. I said, First of all, you raised me

1209
01:14:08,159 --> 01:14:11,720
to think for myself, so of course I'm going to

1210
01:14:11,760 --> 01:14:14,960
have my own thoughts, opinions and ideas than you number one.

1211
01:14:15,279 --> 01:14:21,960
But number two, you did raise me because again, look

1212
01:14:22,000 --> 01:14:26,520
I was raising a household of democrats. I said to him,

1213
01:14:26,680 --> 01:14:30,680
you did raise me to have certain values and certain

1214
01:14:30,720 --> 01:14:35,800
priorities and to stick up for and speak up for

1215
01:14:36,239 --> 01:14:40,239
marginalized groups. Again, you know my dad, he was a

1216
01:14:40,279 --> 01:14:45,039
devout Catholic, so he was not an LGBTQ plus advocate,

1217
01:14:45,079 --> 01:14:49,600
shall we say me I was? Why because my dad

1218
01:14:49,840 --> 01:14:54,720
Catholicism aside, my dad raised me to speak up for

1219
01:14:54,840 --> 01:15:02,399
disenfranchised and marginalized people. So so when he said to me,

1220
01:15:02,880 --> 01:15:04,800
I didn't raise you to think this way, it's like

1221
01:15:05,159 --> 01:15:08,840
the fuck you didn't. Of course you did. You just

1222
01:15:08,920 --> 01:15:12,000
don't like how it's evolved from there. But Dad, you

1223
01:15:12,079 --> 01:15:15,640
did raise me to think this way. Now you don't

1224
01:15:15,680 --> 01:15:17,840
want to take responsibility for it because now you're this

1225
01:15:17,920 --> 01:15:20,800
hardcore maga dude. That's fine. I don't need you to

1226
01:15:20,840 --> 01:15:27,439
take responsibility for it, but you know, but but you

1227
01:15:27,439 --> 01:15:29,760
played a role in it how I turned out. If

1228
01:15:29,960 --> 01:15:32,199
if you're at a point now in your life where

1229
01:15:32,239 --> 01:15:37,640
politically you think having empathy for people and and and

1230
01:15:37,720 --> 01:15:41,039
looking out for people is somehow a weakness instead of

1231
01:15:41,079 --> 01:15:43,680
a strength which you raised me to believe it is,

1232
01:15:45,399 --> 01:15:47,960
you know, that's on you. That's not my fault that

1233
01:15:48,319 --> 01:15:54,680
you've now kind of become this other dude. So I

1234
01:15:54,680 --> 01:15:57,159
think I because I think it was that specific text

1235
01:15:57,159 --> 01:15:58,600
when he said that to me. I didn't raise you

1236
01:15:58,640 --> 01:16:01,760
to think this way. It's like, yeah, you did, and

1237
01:16:01,800 --> 01:16:05,680
I'm glad you did and thank you. You might not

1238
01:16:05,720 --> 01:16:07,560
be happy with the end result, but this is how

1239
01:16:07,600 --> 01:16:12,880
I am. This is who I am, you know. So.

1240
01:16:13,199 --> 01:16:15,039
But but it would go through phases too, so he'd

1241
01:16:15,079 --> 01:16:17,039
get pretty nasty and angry, but then he'd kind of

1242
01:16:17,079 --> 01:16:19,520
back off of it, and there were even times where

1243
01:16:19,520 --> 01:16:21,760
he would try to focus on There was one thing

1244
01:16:21,800 --> 01:16:24,800
where we always agreed, where we agreed when I was

1245
01:16:25,119 --> 01:16:27,199
when I was growing up, that he instilled in me

1246
01:16:27,279 --> 01:16:30,000
and that we agreed on. As far as I know,

1247
01:16:30,600 --> 01:16:32,840
he never changed positions until the day that he died,

1248
01:16:32,880 --> 01:16:35,479
and that was the death penalty. Dad and I were

1249
01:16:35,720 --> 01:16:41,520
always always completely against the death penalty. And that's that's

1250
01:16:41,520 --> 01:16:43,960
something where he never That's that's one issue where he

1251
01:16:44,000 --> 01:16:46,199
never did go go maga. As far as I know,

1252
01:16:46,279 --> 01:16:50,640
he always was opposed to the death penalty. But that's

1253
01:16:50,640 --> 01:16:54,319
how our relationship got complicated. And I I'll never know

1254
01:16:54,640 --> 01:17:01,000
for sure, but I think I think in his mind

1255
01:17:01,840 --> 01:17:07,840
I sort of became the avatar for everything that was

1256
01:17:07,920 --> 01:17:12,079
making him so angry, you know, because he'd called me,

1257
01:17:12,479 --> 01:17:14,399
like I remember at one point in a text messages,

1258
01:17:14,560 --> 01:17:16,520
in a text message, he said, he called me a

1259
01:17:16,520 --> 01:17:22,199
typical woke liberal. And you know, because conservatives think being

1260
01:17:22,199 --> 01:17:26,000
called a woke liberal as an insult, I I don't

1261
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:30,119
take it that way, but it's like, thank you, but

1262
01:17:30,119 --> 01:17:36,479
but he called me a woke liberal and and it's like, uh,

1263
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:47,199
you know, okay, but again I'm I'm, I'm you know,

1264
01:17:47,520 --> 01:17:49,000
there are things that I care about and that I'm

1265
01:17:49,039 --> 01:17:52,079
passionate about. And then I say on my show, uh

1266
01:17:52,159 --> 01:17:56,359
but now, but now to him, and I remember I

1267
01:17:56,399 --> 01:17:58,880
remember that comment specifically. It's like, because he used that

1268
01:17:58,960 --> 01:18:02,159
word typical, and I I remember thinking, I think that

1269
01:18:02,560 --> 01:18:05,600
all of the everyone in the media who he hates,

1270
01:18:06,880 --> 01:18:10,600
you know, everybody on MSNBC and you know, whoever, help

1271
01:18:10,640 --> 01:18:13,880
whoever else right now it's MS now, but whoever, whoever

1272
01:18:13,920 --> 01:18:18,520
he hates, whoever he's angry at, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, everybody,

1273
01:18:19,960 --> 01:18:26,319
Kamala Harris, sorry, Gavin Newsom, Chuck Schumer, whoever. I think

1274
01:18:27,159 --> 01:18:30,279
I think he was directing all of it at me,

1275
01:18:30,600 --> 01:18:34,279
I now represented all of that to him in his mind.

1276
01:18:35,279 --> 01:18:36,760
And part of why I think that to us because

1277
01:18:36,800 --> 01:18:40,520
he would say weird stuff to me, like I remember

1278
01:18:40,560 --> 01:18:43,840
one point getting a text message from him saying, you

1279
01:18:43,840 --> 01:18:47,199
know you support AOC and I don't know how you

1280
01:18:47,199 --> 01:18:49,199
can support her and she's an idiot. And I remember

1281
01:18:49,520 --> 01:18:54,640
reading this text from him and thinking, when was the

1282
01:18:54,760 --> 01:18:57,399
last time I even talked about AOC on my show?

1283
01:18:58,079 --> 01:19:01,439
Like I couldn't remember. Yeah, it was a weird moment

1284
01:19:01,439 --> 01:19:04,039
because I remember reading that text and going, what is

1285
01:19:04,079 --> 01:19:06,760
he talking about? Because he's making it sound like I

1286
01:19:06,760 --> 01:19:08,159
was talking about her on my show today. I can't

1287
01:19:08,159 --> 01:19:09,680
even remember the last time her name came up on

1288
01:19:09,680 --> 01:19:12,079
my show. Or he would say like, you know, you

1289
01:19:12,159 --> 01:19:16,880
love Chuck Schumer, and it's like, no, actually, I don't.

1290
01:19:17,000 --> 01:19:19,439
I think Chuck Schumer should have retired a long time ago.

1291
01:19:21,079 --> 01:19:22,800
I don't think he should be in the position that

1292
01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:28,520
he's in the Democratic Party. He's you know, he's an

1293
01:19:28,520 --> 01:19:32,800
old guard establishment Democrat and he's not helpful to anything

1294
01:19:33,319 --> 01:19:36,399
at this point, and I have nothing, And then I

1295
01:19:36,439 --> 01:19:39,159
started remembering, have I ever said anything positive about Chuck

1296
01:19:39,199 --> 01:19:42,079
Schumer on my show? When was the last time I

1297
01:19:42,119 --> 01:19:44,359
haven't talked about Chuck Schumer, but he's like, but he would.

1298
01:19:44,359 --> 01:19:47,600
He would just say this stuff, like you support this person,

1299
01:19:47,600 --> 01:19:51,520
you support that person. People I never even really talked about.

1300
01:19:51,760 --> 01:19:55,800
In some cases, people I viscerally dislike, like Chuck Schumer,

1301
01:19:56,199 --> 01:19:59,319
no use for him, but he would say these things

1302
01:19:59,359 --> 01:20:01,920
like you support him or who else. I'm trying to

1303
01:20:01,960 --> 01:20:04,079
think of another example, but it would get it would

1304
01:20:04,119 --> 01:20:09,239
get weird, like like, what is he talking about here?

1305
01:20:10,560 --> 01:20:21,159
So I think he I think he just got I

1306
01:20:21,199 --> 01:20:28,079
think he got red pilled, but red pill on steroids.

1307
01:20:30,520 --> 01:20:34,720
So I say all that to say, and again I'm

1308
01:20:34,760 --> 01:20:38,279
not I'm not trying to say anything negative because that

1309
01:20:38,680 --> 01:20:41,680
was not the point of this. I wanted to talk

1310
01:20:41,680 --> 01:20:43,880
about my dad to honor him, because I loved my

1311
01:20:43,920 --> 01:20:47,880
father very much, love presentense. I love my father very much,

1312
01:20:49,119 --> 01:20:52,279
probably more so the version you know, pre him getting

1313
01:20:52,319 --> 01:20:55,840
so angry with me, but more love that version of

1314
01:20:55,920 --> 01:20:58,159
him more. But I always loved my father right to

1315
01:20:58,199 --> 01:21:01,880
the end. Seeing him in that hospital bed was horrific,

1316
01:21:06,079 --> 01:21:17,640
seeing him lying there unconscious, It's horrifying, you know. And

1317
01:21:17,760 --> 01:21:19,479
I know that he loved me, and even when he

1318
01:21:19,520 --> 01:21:21,119
was angry with me, I know that he loved me,

1319
01:21:21,960 --> 01:21:24,760
but you know, but I did want to present the

1320
01:21:24,760 --> 01:21:31,359
whole picture too, you know, and there was some but look,

1321
01:21:31,439 --> 01:21:39,000
I mean when when the show moved to Saturdays and

1322
01:21:39,039 --> 01:21:44,119
we took the politics out of the radio version of

1323
01:21:44,159 --> 01:21:48,039
the show, the W and H version, and started focusing

1324
01:21:48,039 --> 01:21:54,039
more on on just interviews with musicians and other and

1325
01:21:54,079 --> 01:21:58,720
discussing other subjects going on in the music industry. I

1326
01:21:58,760 --> 01:22:01,159
think he probably missed being able to call in because

1327
01:22:01,159 --> 01:22:03,640
obviously there's there's really no room for callers on that

1328
01:22:03,760 --> 01:22:06,800
version of the show, with with rare exception on the

1329
01:22:06,800 --> 01:22:09,640
current iteration. But but it may have been a relief

1330
01:22:09,680 --> 01:22:12,479
to him too in a sense, because I did notice

1331
01:22:12,880 --> 01:22:15,479
because he would text me and say very nice things

1332
01:22:15,520 --> 01:22:20,800
about the Saturday show, very positive, encouraging things, talking about

1333
01:22:20,840 --> 01:22:24,199
how he would say, you know, Matts, so many so

1334
01:22:24,279 --> 01:22:27,680
many uh so much incredible talent out there, and you're

1335
01:22:27,800 --> 01:22:31,840
and you're highlighting it and it's and it's great. You're

1336
01:22:31,880 --> 01:22:37,479
doing such a wonderful job with that. Hello to gamer

1337
01:22:37,600 --> 01:22:46,279
Jane in the chat watching on twitch. I believe oh

1338
01:22:47,239 --> 01:22:53,960
there's a quote here from gamer Jane Kenneth boiled boiling.

1339
01:22:54,279 --> 01:22:56,479
I don't know who that is said quote, anyone who

1340
01:22:56,479 --> 01:23:00,720
believes in indefinite growth in anything physical on a physically

1341
01:23:00,800 --> 01:23:05,840
finite planet is either mad or an economist. Us. I

1342
01:23:06,159 --> 01:23:07,800
have no idea what that has to do with anything,

1343
01:23:07,800 --> 01:23:16,560
but it's a very uh interesting thought. Okay. I do

1344
01:23:16,640 --> 01:23:23,199
appreciate the interaction regardless. Please don't think I don't. So,

1345
01:23:23,720 --> 01:23:25,520
you know, So there was there was a lot of

1346
01:23:25,520 --> 01:23:27,920
positive feedback from my dad. But then, of course, you know,

1347
01:23:27,960 --> 01:23:30,359
if I did something political on this version of the show,

1348
01:23:30,960 --> 01:23:34,960
or on uh Hanging Left, the show that I do

1349
01:23:35,000 --> 01:23:39,239
with Todd Air, or or even on even on Tough Bumps,

1350
01:23:40,039 --> 01:23:41,560
the show that I do with Eric Pilcher, which is

1351
01:23:41,600 --> 01:23:45,159
all about professional wrestling. Dad was upset about some of

1352
01:23:45,159 --> 01:23:49,319
our comments about hull Cogan after he passed away, because Eric,

1353
01:23:49,359 --> 01:23:52,560
in particular, I I tried to be a little more measured.

1354
01:23:52,640 --> 01:23:55,640
Eric had some very negative things to say about hul Cogan,

1355
01:23:56,840 --> 01:24:04,720
and Dad was was mad about that, you know. But

1356
01:24:05,079 --> 01:24:12,439
h but all that, all that kind of falls away,

1357
01:24:13,159 --> 01:24:16,279
you know, when you get a call from him saying,

1358
01:24:16,439 --> 01:24:19,720
you know, Maddie, I'm in the hospital. It's my heart.

1359
01:24:19,840 --> 01:24:29,760
It's uh yeah, my dad. I think he was sixty

1360
01:24:29,840 --> 01:24:31,800
seven when he had his first heart attack and then

1361
01:24:31,800 --> 01:24:35,600
he had a second one a few years ago, and uh,

1362
01:24:35,680 --> 01:24:38,880
I had to have open heart surgery and the whole deal,

1363
01:24:38,960 --> 01:24:44,520
and recovered both times. This time, you know, he went

1364
01:24:44,560 --> 01:24:47,199
to Wentworth Douglas because he was living in Dover, and

1365
01:24:47,239 --> 01:24:51,920
then he was in total heart failure and they, uh,

1366
01:24:53,359 --> 01:24:54,880
I don't know if they use the word total. That

1367
01:24:54,880 --> 01:24:56,800
doesn't make sense, does it, Because if he was in

1368
01:24:56,840 --> 01:24:59,760
total heart failure, he probably would have died right away,

1369
01:24:59,800 --> 01:25:04,479
but severe heart failure, and they ended up transferring him

1370
01:25:04,479 --> 01:25:10,920
to Mass General. And I can tell you this, I

1371
01:25:11,000 --> 01:25:16,960
do take some solace in the fact that he was

1372
01:25:19,239 --> 01:25:22,560
at one of the best hospitals in the country with

1373
01:25:22,600 --> 01:25:25,319
one of the best cardiac teams in the country, Mass

1374
01:25:25,359 --> 01:25:30,800
General in Boston, because I know that he had let

1375
01:25:30,880 --> 01:25:33,479
me put it this way, if they couldn't save him,

1376
01:25:33,760 --> 01:25:36,199
if the team there couldn't save him, and they loved

1377
01:25:36,239 --> 01:25:39,640
my dad, by the way, one of the doctors told

1378
01:25:39,680 --> 01:25:41,319
me on the phone. He said, he's the most pleasant

1379
01:25:41,319 --> 01:25:44,079
person here and everyone loves him, loves talking to him.

1380
01:25:44,319 --> 01:25:48,960
So he was a very good patient. Didn't surprise me actually,

1381
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:51,960
But apparently the television stayed off too. There was no

1382
01:25:52,000 --> 01:25:54,159
Fox News while he was there in that hospital bed.

1383
01:25:54,439 --> 01:25:56,199
I wonder how different he might have been if he'd

1384
01:25:56,640 --> 01:25:59,239
but he I don't think he wanted it. I think

1385
01:25:59,239 --> 01:26:02,119
he just wanted to to focus on the positive as

1386
01:26:02,159 --> 01:26:04,279
he was trying to get better. But if they couldn't

1387
01:26:04,279 --> 01:26:05,680
save him, this is the point of what I'm saying.

1388
01:26:05,720 --> 01:26:08,119
If they couldn't save him, nobody could. You know, in

1389
01:26:08,199 --> 01:26:10,920
one of the best hospitals in the country. If if

1390
01:26:10,960 --> 01:26:14,279
Mass General couldn't save my dad, nobody could save my dad. So,

1391
01:26:14,960 --> 01:26:17,880
you know, that does give me a little bit of

1392
01:26:17,920 --> 01:26:22,920
peace of mind, knowing that, you know, he wasn't at

1393
01:26:23,560 --> 01:26:31,279
you know, you know, some some backwoods po dunk medical

1394
01:26:31,319 --> 01:26:37,600
facility and uh you know backwater Alabama or something, you know,

1395
01:26:38,520 --> 01:26:43,039
Bob's Hospital in backwoods Alabama. No, he was in one

1396
01:26:43,039 --> 01:26:45,560
of the best hospitals in the country. If they couldn't

1397
01:26:45,560 --> 01:26:47,479
save him, no one could save him. And he fought

1398
01:26:47,479 --> 01:26:49,439
bravely for Cheese. I think it was almost two months

1399
01:26:49,479 --> 01:26:52,439
from start to finish, from when Wentworth Douglas transferred him

1400
01:26:52,479 --> 01:26:55,399
there to when he passed away. He was there for

1401
01:26:55,399 --> 01:27:08,920
a long time, so he fought bravely. Unjillie couldn't and

1402
01:27:08,920 --> 01:27:17,960
that was it. So I appreciate anyone who sat through

1403
01:27:18,000 --> 01:27:21,399
all of this because I think I think we've kind

1404
01:27:21,399 --> 01:27:23,800
of exhausted it. The one other thing that I will say,

1405
01:27:23,840 --> 01:27:26,800
and I did say this on social media, and I

1406
01:27:26,840 --> 01:27:28,279
want to repeat it here too, And if you know,

1407
01:27:28,319 --> 01:27:31,359
if Lindsay or Ryan or both, if they happened to

1408
01:27:32,439 --> 01:27:35,920
watch this or listen to this, you know, silver line

1409
01:27:36,000 --> 01:27:38,039
this is all. This is all going to sound very cliche.

1410
01:27:39,439 --> 01:27:42,520
I apologize, but because I try not to be cliche.

1411
01:27:43,000 --> 01:27:45,359
But if there's a silver lining to any of it,

1412
01:27:45,359 --> 01:27:49,880
it's that I've reconnected with them. My family became I

1413
01:27:49,880 --> 01:27:51,960
didn't talk any about this part at all, but my

1414
01:27:52,039 --> 01:27:58,520
family became pretty fractured. Jeez, what year would it have

1415
01:27:58,600 --> 01:28:04,840
even been? Sometime in the nineties when uh, my h

1416
01:28:05,000 --> 01:28:10,720
my stepmother Debbie left my dad and uh moved back

1417
01:28:10,760 --> 01:28:14,239
to New York with my sister Lindsay and my brother Ryan.

1418
01:28:15,520 --> 01:28:17,760
They're they're half siblings. Uh so you know, we have

1419
01:28:17,880 --> 01:28:21,479
the same dad, different mothers. They're from from my father's

1420
01:28:21,600 --> 01:28:29,000
second marriage, and they and and you know, as as

1421
01:28:29,399 --> 01:28:31,760
happens in a lot of families, it's just you know,

1422
01:28:32,079 --> 01:28:35,359
so we we were in different places geographically, and then

1423
01:28:35,399 --> 01:28:37,800
life kind of takes over and everyone goes on whatever

1424
01:28:37,840 --> 01:28:40,560
path they're on, and sometimes families lose touch. And I

1425
01:28:40,680 --> 01:28:44,880
will be the first to admit and acknowledge that when

1426
01:28:44,880 --> 01:28:47,560
it comes to keeping in touch with people, even members

1427
01:28:47,600 --> 01:28:52,880
of my own family, Uh, I'm not I'm not good

1428
01:28:52,880 --> 01:28:58,600
at it. I have an incoming call from doctor Kevin.

1429
01:29:00,000 --> 01:29:01,560
I'm not sure why he's called. I haven't heard from

1430
01:29:01,560 --> 01:29:03,199
doctor Kevin in a long time. I'm not sure why

1431
01:29:03,199 --> 01:29:05,880
he's calling me right now unless he's watching the live

1432
01:29:05,880 --> 01:29:08,680
stream but and wants to join the conversation. But Kevin,

1433
01:29:08,720 --> 01:29:12,920
I don't I don't really have any way to answer it.

1434
01:29:13,439 --> 01:29:14,720
I mean, I have a way to answer it, but

1435
01:29:14,760 --> 01:29:18,000
I don't have any way to import the audio unless

1436
01:29:18,039 --> 01:29:20,119
he wants me to put him on speaker. Well, let

1437
01:29:20,159 --> 01:29:24,640
me finish this thought. And I love doctor Kevin, noticerespect

1438
01:29:24,680 --> 01:29:32,079
at all. He's a great guy. But you know, I'm

1439
01:29:32,479 --> 01:29:36,079
really glad to have reconnected with my sister Lindsay and

1440
01:29:36,079 --> 01:29:43,359
my brother Ryan. They're both remarkable people. And you know,

1441
01:29:43,399 --> 01:29:45,279
they came out we had to clean out Dad's apartment.

1442
01:29:45,399 --> 01:29:47,560
They came out here and we did that together. But

1443
01:29:49,079 --> 01:29:55,439
and and Lindsay's Lindsay's husband Gary also, you know, I

1444
01:29:55,520 --> 01:29:57,720
got to meet him for the first time. Just a

1445
01:29:58,039 --> 01:30:05,279
great guy, very positive attitude, positive vibe. And of course, uh,

1446
01:30:05,359 --> 01:30:09,199
they're they're two there are two children who I had

1447
01:30:09,199 --> 01:30:12,439
not met prior and uh, and and my stepmother Debbie,

1448
01:30:12,479 --> 01:30:17,680
who hadn't seen in decades. That was that was wild

1449
01:30:19,920 --> 01:30:26,399
seeing her again, just like wow, you know, And it's strange,

1450
01:30:26,520 --> 01:30:30,800
like so much time can pass since you've seen somebody

1451
01:30:30,840 --> 01:30:34,359
and then like literally decades and then you're there in

1452
01:30:34,399 --> 01:30:41,640
the room with them and it's like nothing's changed in

1453
01:30:41,680 --> 01:30:46,439
a way. You know. Again, it all sounds very cliche

1454
01:30:46,439 --> 01:30:48,640
and trite, and I don't. I try not to be

1455
01:30:48,720 --> 01:30:54,960
that way. Uh, but you know, but it was wonderful too.

1456
01:30:55,159 --> 01:30:57,199
You know. The night before we we we had dinner

1457
01:30:57,279 --> 01:30:59,279
and we all had dinner together and that was nice.

1458
01:31:00,960 --> 01:31:02,800
And like I said, you know, they've turned out to

1459
01:31:02,800 --> 01:31:07,520
be remarkable people and who have done a lot of

1460
01:31:07,520 --> 01:31:16,760
the heavy lifting in this process too, which I'm grateful for,

1461
01:31:19,840 --> 01:31:22,880
you know. And then there's you know, like I said too,

1462
01:31:22,880 --> 01:31:26,840
then there's all the regrets and second guessing and kind

1463
01:31:26,840 --> 01:31:29,079
of feeling like I shouldn't have let I shouldn't you know,

1464
01:31:29,159 --> 01:31:31,920
because it was never again, there was never any estrangement

1465
01:31:32,159 --> 01:31:35,479
between my siblings and I none, not at all. It

1466
01:31:35,560 --> 01:31:42,159
was never like that, no problem or anything. We just

1467
01:31:43,399 --> 01:31:47,399
you know, or not even that. I mean, what five

1468
01:31:47,439 --> 01:31:50,159
hours where they where they live said five hours from here,

1469
01:31:50,199 --> 01:31:54,680
six hours from here. But you know, people, they just

1470
01:31:54,800 --> 01:31:59,439
end up on their own paths. And I also think too,

1471
01:32:00,960 --> 01:32:05,560
there's this phenomenon where I think social media makes it

1472
01:32:05,600 --> 01:32:07,359
a little easier than it used to be to kind

1473
01:32:07,399 --> 01:32:13,520
of take people for granted, because it almost feels like

1474
01:32:13,520 --> 01:32:15,960
like if you if you can see them online, if

1475
01:32:15,960 --> 01:32:19,039
you can see them on social media, then that sort

1476
01:32:19,079 --> 01:32:27,680
of becomes almost like a replacement for keeping in touch

1477
01:32:27,680 --> 01:32:30,239
with them. You don't feel like you're not in touch

1478
01:32:30,279 --> 01:32:34,000
with that person because you like their Facebook post or something,

1479
01:32:34,680 --> 01:32:39,840
and that sort of becomes good enough. And it's but

1480
01:32:39,840 --> 01:32:41,479
it's really a way of taking them for granted. And

1481
01:32:41,560 --> 01:32:45,399
I am as guilty of that, if not more so

1482
01:32:45,720 --> 01:32:54,640
than anybody, and I feel terrible about that. But getting

1483
01:32:54,640 --> 01:32:59,279
to see them and and and and seeing seeing the

1484
01:32:59,359 --> 01:33:05,479
remarkable people they've become was a real blessing. And it

1485
01:33:05,720 --> 01:33:08,439
sucks that it took Dad passing away for that to happen,

1486
01:33:10,199 --> 01:33:13,399
but at least it happened, you know, getting to see them,

1487
01:33:13,399 --> 01:33:16,920
and it's funny. I got to the h that night

1488
01:33:17,319 --> 01:33:20,640
before before we had to clean out Dad's apartment. I

1489
01:33:20,640 --> 01:33:23,000
got to the restaurant we met up in Portsmouth, and

1490
01:33:23,000 --> 01:33:26,600
I got to the restaurant before them, and then as

1491
01:33:26,600 --> 01:33:28,479
they're getting as they're getting out of the vehicle, I

1492
01:33:28,600 --> 01:33:30,640
just it was that was a cold night. Actually not

1493
01:33:30,680 --> 01:33:32,199
as cold as it's been recently, but that was a

1494
01:33:32,239 --> 01:33:35,479
cold night, and I just so I was waiting inside,

1495
01:33:36,119 --> 01:33:39,159
but you know, as they pulled up and they're getting

1496
01:33:39,159 --> 01:33:40,399
out of the vehicle, I just kind of opened the

1497
01:33:40,399 --> 01:33:42,359
door of the restaurant. I poke my hat out and

1498
01:33:42,359 --> 01:33:45,239
I said, Hi, are you my family? I knew it

1499
01:33:45,279 --> 01:33:52,239
was them, but it was surreal, it really was, but

1500
01:33:52,359 --> 01:33:57,279
in the best possible way. So I was nervous. I

1501
01:33:57,319 --> 01:33:59,640
was nervous about it, but then being there with them,

1502
01:33:59,760 --> 01:34:02,560
like like once they got there, you know, and where

1503
01:34:02,600 --> 01:34:06,079
everyone's hugging and everything, then you know, whatever nervousness or

1504
01:34:06,079 --> 01:34:10,159
apprehension I felt was just gone, completely gone. It's like, oh,

1505
01:34:10,159 --> 01:34:11,600
here we are. This is supposed to be We're all

1506
01:34:11,640 --> 01:34:15,279
supposed to be together. Just felt really natural, and it

1507
01:34:15,359 --> 01:34:17,000
was good and we had a nice we had a

1508
01:34:17,039 --> 01:34:27,600
nice meal together. So there will be a service, I

1509
01:34:27,640 --> 01:34:32,279
believe in May, with the full military honors and everything

1510
01:34:32,279 --> 01:34:36,359
for my dad because he was a veteran, he was

1511
01:34:36,439 --> 01:34:43,039
in the Navy during the Vietnam War. That there was

1512
01:34:43,119 --> 01:34:48,279
going to be something else but in New York and

1513
01:34:48,399 --> 01:34:50,319
that's where he'll be buried to in New York State,

1514
01:34:50,359 --> 01:34:52,199
because ultimately, I mean, he had more family out there

1515
01:34:52,239 --> 01:34:55,680
than he had here, and he you know, but the

1516
01:34:55,720 --> 01:35:00,000
decision was made to cremate him. But but again, there

1517
01:35:00,159 --> 01:35:03,640
be an official funeral service in May, I believe may

1518
01:35:03,680 --> 01:35:07,800
or June, I think is what Gary had said, you know,

1519
01:35:07,840 --> 01:35:10,600
but they decided to cremate them, which is fine with me.

1520
01:35:10,720 --> 01:35:14,119
I mean, I personally, I can tell you I've I've

1521
01:35:14,720 --> 01:35:18,880
I've always found it kind of interesting that people tend

1522
01:35:18,880 --> 01:35:21,600
to be so concerned with that or what's going to

1523
01:35:21,600 --> 01:35:23,720
happen to their body after they die. You know, you'll

1524
01:35:23,720 --> 01:35:26,000
often hear people say, well, I want to be buried.

1525
01:35:26,119 --> 01:35:28,199
I want to be I want to be buried in

1526
01:35:28,279 --> 01:35:31,600
such and such a place with you know, and or

1527
01:35:31,920 --> 01:35:34,479
they'll say, well, I don't like the idea of being

1528
01:35:34,479 --> 01:35:36,800
in the ground. I want to be cremated and then

1529
01:35:36,880 --> 01:35:40,039
you can scatter my ashes in the ocean or put

1530
01:35:40,079 --> 01:35:42,520
me on your mantle or whatever. And I just always

1531
01:35:42,520 --> 01:35:45,760
thought it's kind of interesting that people are so concerned

1532
01:35:45,760 --> 01:35:49,000
with that. I personally couldn't care less, like what you

1533
01:35:49,039 --> 01:35:51,800
do with me after I die. If you want to

1534
01:35:52,079 --> 01:35:53,720
take me and dump me in the river, you can.

1535
01:35:53,840 --> 01:35:56,600
I mean, you probably can't. I'm sure that's extremely illegal.

1536
01:35:57,159 --> 01:35:58,720
But you know, if you wanted to have some fun

1537
01:35:58,760 --> 01:36:00,359
with it and make it look like it was a hit,

1538
01:36:00,399 --> 01:36:02,880
go ahead, because I got news for you. I'm not

1539
01:36:02,960 --> 01:36:06,439
gonna know. You know what I mean, When I die,

1540
01:36:06,640 --> 01:36:09,840
my ego will die with me, So I've I've always said,

1541
01:36:09,880 --> 01:36:12,479
you know, I could not give a shit less what

1542
01:36:12,560 --> 01:36:14,680
you do with me after I die, because to me,

1543
01:36:15,279 --> 01:36:19,680
it's like or it's like with like I don't understand.

1544
01:36:19,880 --> 01:36:23,159
And again, I don't mean this. I'm not criticizing anyone

1545
01:36:23,159 --> 01:36:26,079
when I say any of this. Everyone has their own

1546
01:36:26,079 --> 01:36:27,880
way of dealing with death and grief and all of it.

1547
01:36:28,000 --> 01:36:29,640
So you know, however you want to do it as

1548
01:36:29,640 --> 01:36:31,920
your deal, I'm not I'm not trying to make fun

1549
01:36:31,920 --> 01:36:36,479
of anybody or criticize anybody, but like, I don't, I

1550
01:36:36,520 --> 01:36:38,800
don't do uh. I don't do the open casket thing.

1551
01:36:38,920 --> 01:36:40,520
Like if I go to a funeral and as an

1552
01:36:40,520 --> 01:36:43,880
open casket, I'm not gonna or awake. I'm not gonna

1553
01:36:43,880 --> 01:36:47,760
go and go over to where the body is and

1554
01:36:47,800 --> 01:36:50,560
say my last goodbyes and whatnot. I don't do that.

1555
01:36:50,680 --> 01:36:54,840
I avoid that. I personally think it's a bit morbid. Again,

1556
01:36:55,439 --> 01:36:58,359
everybody do your own thing. I have an this is

1557
01:36:58,399 --> 01:37:03,399
an unpopular opinion that I have. I'm an odd case

1558
01:37:03,560 --> 01:37:07,039
on this, but I just don't want to ever do

1559
01:37:07,199 --> 01:37:13,680
that because to me, that body that's not them, that's

1560
01:37:15,239 --> 01:37:20,159
now a shell that used to contain them, their essence,

1561
01:37:20,199 --> 01:37:23,279
their consciousness, their soul if you believe in that, whatever.

1562
01:37:23,680 --> 01:37:26,760
But once they die, that's no longer them. It's now

1563
01:37:26,880 --> 01:37:29,199
just a dead body. So I don't need to go

1564
01:37:29,760 --> 01:37:32,119
and hang out with a dead body and say bye.

1565
01:37:32,439 --> 01:37:35,920
Like to me, it's weird, but again that's me. I'm unusual.

1566
01:37:36,119 --> 01:37:38,600
I understand people need that. People need that for closure,

1567
01:37:38,680 --> 01:37:41,600
whatever it is. That's how you process grief. You go,

1568
01:37:41,760 --> 01:37:44,840
you see the body, you say goodbye. I've never done that,

1569
01:37:45,680 --> 01:37:50,800
no thank you, But again that's me. I don't understand

1570
01:37:50,840 --> 01:37:54,640
the open casket thing. I don't understand having awake. And

1571
01:37:54,720 --> 01:37:58,439
again I look, it's recorded. It's documented. So you know,

1572
01:37:58,760 --> 01:38:01,039
if when I die, you do decide to throw me

1573
01:38:01,079 --> 01:38:05,960
in a river, you have no no jury will convict you,

1574
01:38:06,680 --> 01:38:09,560
because I'm sure it's very illegal to do that, because

1575
01:38:10,279 --> 01:38:13,199
I am on record saying you have permission to do that.

1576
01:38:14,680 --> 01:38:19,319
There you go. You can eat me if you want to.

1577
01:38:19,359 --> 01:38:22,159
If you're a cannibal and I'm dead and I look

1578
01:38:22,239 --> 01:38:25,079
delicious to you, you go ahead. I do not give

1579
01:38:25,119 --> 01:38:31,159
a shit because I won't know. I mean, assuming there's well, look,

1580
01:38:31,199 --> 01:38:33,920
if there's no afterlife and it's just that's it, lights out,

1581
01:38:34,159 --> 01:38:37,000
I won't know anything. And if there isn't, if I'm

1582
01:38:37,039 --> 01:38:38,760
wrong and there is an afterlife, well hopefully at that

1583
01:38:38,760 --> 01:38:41,880
point I have bigger fish to fry than worrying about

1584
01:38:42,000 --> 01:38:45,000
you know, whether you know what happened to the carcass

1585
01:38:45,039 --> 01:38:48,520
that used to contain me. That's how I feel about it,

1586
01:38:49,680 --> 01:38:54,680
all right. I think I've exhausted this and I'm glad

1587
01:38:54,720 --> 01:38:58,159
I finally did it. And if there's anyone who actually

1588
01:38:58,159 --> 01:39:03,680
sat through the whole thing, thank you. So that's my

1589
01:39:04,720 --> 01:39:08,319
kind of my memorial to Martin James Connerton. My father

1590
01:39:08,840 --> 01:39:13,319
passed away at the age of seventy eight December eighteenth,

1591
01:39:13,359 --> 01:39:18,159
twenty twenty five at mass General Hospital. And you know,

1592
01:39:18,239 --> 01:39:20,399
I may talk about him more in the future if

1593
01:39:20,479 --> 01:39:23,479
something comes up that maybe I wanted to say that

1594
01:39:23,520 --> 01:39:27,000
I forgot or anything like that, But otherwise I think

1595
01:39:27,079 --> 01:39:31,439
that's it. If you are watching or listening to this

1596
01:39:31,760 --> 01:39:34,399
live on Sunday night and you're wondering about this week's

1597
01:39:34,399 --> 01:39:39,239
episode of Tough Bumps, Eric wanted to skip this week

1598
01:39:39,279 --> 01:39:42,880
because he's been very, very busy, so we have taken

1599
01:39:43,119 --> 01:39:45,880
this week off, but Tough Bumps will return next week,

1600
01:39:45,920 --> 01:39:49,640
I believe. And of course, if you missed this week's

1601
01:39:49,760 --> 01:39:52,640
radio show that is up and available. You can get that.

1602
01:39:52,720 --> 01:39:56,640
Please subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. And if

1603
01:39:56,680 --> 01:39:58,399
you want to keep up with everything I'm up to

1604
01:39:58,720 --> 01:40:01,000
or learn more about me, just find out how to

1605
01:40:01,000 --> 01:40:03,600
reach me. Go to my website Matt Connorton dot com.

1606
01:40:03,880 --> 01:40:05,520
And if you're watching the video of this, it's even

1607
01:40:05,560 --> 01:40:10,000
on the screen. So there you go. All right, I

1608
01:40:10,000 --> 01:40:14,199
think that's it. Love to you all, thank you, and

1609
01:40:16,039 --> 01:40:20,359
stay safe again if you're you know, if you have

1610
01:40:20,399 --> 01:40:25,000
to travel anywhere, and you're selling breather. This terrible weather

1611
01:40:25,039 --> 01:40:28,600
system is occurring. Please be very very careful. Bye everybody,