Speaker 1: It's eight oh seven. Stick around time for a Friday
Speaker 1: night edition of Nightside with Dan Ray. I'm Nicole Davis,
Speaker 1: WBZ Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody, welcome and welcome on into a Friday
Speaker 2: night edition. As Nicole has just told you, it is
Speaker 2: the end of the week, but we have four hours
Speaker 2: to go. We'll take you all the way until Saturday morning,
Speaker 2: April twelfth. And before we get started tonight, I just
Speaker 2: wanted to make note. Oftentimes you don't hear these sorts
Speaker 2: of things, but Nicole is going to be moving her
Speaker 2: time slot here at WBZ from her regularly well her
Speaker 2: currently scheduled time, which is working with us at night
Speaker 2: and in the hours before at Nightside. But Nicole, you
Speaker 2: were staying with the station. You're moving to the midday.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: I am, Well, we've just had some some moves here
Speaker 1: at the station in recent weeks, and this is just
Speaker 1: what's next for me. I suppose in the in the pipeline.
Speaker 1: So I've got to get used to getting up at
Speaker 1: five thirty in the morning. That's kind be new. I
Speaker 1: haven't done that in a while.
Speaker 2: But five thirty is not bad. Let me tell you,
Speaker 2: five thirty is not bad. I used to get up
Speaker 2: at quarter three.
Speaker 1: Well, it didn't we all when we were working morning drive, right,
Speaker 1: And I mean I have not miss that.
Speaker 2: You can not do that. But yeah, look, I'm going
Speaker 2: to miss you. I don't get into the station much,
Speaker 2: but please let us keep in touch with one because
Speaker 2: I always enjoyed a little back and forth here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm kind of sad tonight, I too.
Speaker 1: I've been really upset about it. I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm really excited for whatever comes next. But
Speaker 1: you know, we have a special connection. I love the
Speaker 1: night side listeners. It's been I don't even know how
Speaker 1: many years at this point, it's been.
Speaker 2: A lot of fun while a while.
Speaker 1: Thank you just for everything while I've been here on
Speaker 1: the show with you doing our thing.
Speaker 2: Well right back at you, and I know that we
Speaker 2: share a love for the Boston sports teams and we
Speaker 2: kid a kid back and forth with it. But this
Speaker 2: is one that I'm really quite serious about. I know
Speaker 2: you're going to do a great job and thank in
Speaker 2: your new assignment. And the great part about this is
Speaker 2: that you still be here at WBZ and be listening
Speaker 2: to you maybe during I would be listening at a
Speaker 2: different time during the day, but we will keep in touch.
Speaker 2: And I just want to say thanks for all of
Speaker 2: your help over the years. Oh you been y. You
Speaker 2: have tipped me off on stories that go on. You
Speaker 2: have gone above and beyond. I'm sitting here doing a
Speaker 2: show when all of a sudden, some big news story happens,
Speaker 2: and you have always kept me in the loop. And
Speaker 2: I just can't tell you much. I appreciated that you
Speaker 2: were truly a news person.
Speaker 1: Thank you, No, I appreciate you. And you know I
Speaker 1: love the show. I listen all the time. Thank you
Speaker 1: for expanding my mind on a lot of things, having
Speaker 1: great conversations, letting me talk to your guests from time
Speaker 1: to time. Well, you know, it's it's been a lot
Speaker 1: of fun and I've learned a lot from you. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'll just be listening to you as I
Speaker 1: put the dinner dishes away. Now it's a little bit different,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. We'll go get lunch sometime.
Speaker 2: It'll be great, all right. Thanks Thanks to gold the
Speaker 2: Ultimate News pro and it's a pleasure to have worked
Speaker 2: with you, and we will continue to be in touchdown.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going anywhere. Don't worry else.
Speaker 2: You excellent, excellent. Listen, gentlemen, that's a little bit of
Speaker 2: a tuget the hot strings from me here tonight. You
Speaker 2: develop friendships and relationships with your on air colleagues, and
Speaker 2: but life, life does go on, as of course, Nightside
Speaker 2: goes on. My name is Dan Ray, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to steal any more time from my first guest,
Speaker 2: a very distinguished guest, the doctor Marshall Rungi. He's the
Speaker 2: dean of the Medican School at the University of Michigan.
Speaker 2: Dean Rungy, Welcome to Nightside. How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm great, Dan, nice, Nice to be on your show.
Speaker 2: As a big sports guy, I have to ask this question.
Speaker 2: Any relation to a former Major League umpire named Ed
Speaker 2: Rungy from the nineteen fifties and sixties.
Speaker 3: Well, my father claimed we were related. He couldn't exactly
Speaker 3: explain it, but Ed was an upstanding guy and I'm
Speaker 3: happy to be related to him in whatever way.
Speaker 2: How many talk show hosts in America who you would
Speaker 2: talk to would be able to pull the name Ed
Speaker 2: Rungy out of the year. Not many, not many, you're
Speaker 2: the first. I'll bet, I'll bet. So we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about technological advances, of course, which we have all seen,
Speaker 2: policy changes and emerging business models fundamentally transforming America healthcare.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean by that. It is very
Speaker 2: tough here in New England, at least in the Greater
Speaker 2: Boston area right now, to get a new primary care physician.
Speaker 2: I had a lunch the other day with a former
Speaker 2: PCP of mine who retired. He was telling me that
Speaker 2: a retired PCP that he knows woman cannot find a
Speaker 2: PCP for herself. So this is maybe not what you
Speaker 2: want to talk about. But things are changing, and they're
Speaker 2: not necessarily changing in a good direction as far I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the changes from the perspective of the
Speaker 2: perspective that you have out of ann Arbor.
Speaker 3: Well, Dan, what you're talking about in terms of access
Speaker 3: to primary care is a national problem. It's one that
Speaker 3: we really need to change the way we're training primary
Speaker 3: care physicians encourage people to go into primary care. There
Speaker 3: are lots of levers that we could use, that we
Speaker 3: need to use, and I think it's possible for us
Speaker 3: to really improve access to primary care and the reason
Speaker 3: I feel so passionately about it too reasons. One is
Speaker 3: I do believe that if we can improve access to
Speaker 3: primary care, that means we can improve access to preventive care.
Speaker 3: And everybody complains about how much health care costs, and
Speaker 3: one of the best lists for that is to make
Speaker 3: people to help them become more healthy. The second is,
Speaker 3: if you compare us to our peer countries, advanced countries,
Speaker 3: and look at the percent of our physicians who are
Speaker 3: primary care physicians, it's very low compared to our peers,
Speaker 3: and I think that is reflected sometimes. We're definitely reflected
Speaker 3: in the difficulty of finding a new internist or family
Speaker 3: medicine physician or whatever you prefer for primary care.
Speaker 2: My friends in the field tell me that the amount
Speaker 2: of paperwork that PCPs or interness to whatever are required,
Speaker 2: they spend more time doing paperwork than interacting with patients.
Speaker 2: Is that a complaint you hear out there?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? And I have an interness and he is fantastic,
Speaker 3: and up until very recently, when i'd go see him,
Speaker 3: he'd have his back turn to me. We'd be talking,
Speaker 3: but he'd be type of things to his computer. So
Speaker 3: one technology advance, I'd like to just mention to you
Speaker 3: there's an advance called ambient AI and I don't know
Speaker 3: if you're familiar with that term. I wasn't familiar with
Speaker 3: it until recently. But we always ask, and I'm mac
Speaker 3: cardialgist will ask our patients. Says, okay, if we use
Speaker 3: ambient AAI and we explain it to them, what's involves
Speaker 3: is basically a microphone and a computer taking accepting all
Speaker 3: the interchange between the person and their position. And not
Speaker 3: only that, it's not a transcript producers, it produces a
Speaker 3: high quality medical note and our faculty, our physicians who
Speaker 3: are using this now say that this has decreased the
Speaker 3: amount of time they have to spend with just chart
Speaker 3: work by up to two hours a day. That's a
Speaker 3: lot of time.
Speaker 2: I had a guest on last night who writes political
Speaker 2: and economic issues. Guest he graduated from Carnegie Mellon, which
Speaker 2: I think is probably the toughest school in the country
Speaker 2: to get into account to graduate, and he writes for
Speaker 2: a platform called substack. He could take a thirty one
Speaker 2: hundred word essay and he can load it on to
Speaker 2: an AI in three minutes and what comes what comes
Speaker 2: out is basically two separate voice is discussing and in
Speaker 2: effect regurgitating what he has written. Not in a verbatim form,
Speaker 2: but you have the audio of two people speaking and saying, well,
Speaker 2: you know, Tatsu wrote this interesting article, and what did
Speaker 2: you think about it? And they get right into the article.
Speaker 2: It's an amazing process. So yeah, that's that is. That's
Speaker 2: a great development.
Speaker 3: It is, and I think it's one of many examples
Speaker 3: where our advancing technology, including AI and other advances, is
Speaker 3: going to make it better for physicians, all health care providers,
Speaker 3: and better for those who are patients.
Speaker 2: But can I ask you one other question? As the
Speaker 2: DNA of a medical school, why do we not have
Speaker 2: more medical schools in the United States of America. A
Speaker 2: lot of bright young men and women coming out of
Speaker 2: college these days are going offshore to medical schools, many
Speaker 2: of them in the Caribbean. It seems to me that
Speaker 2: there's a million law schools. I'm a lawyer by training,
Speaker 2: a lawyer by practice, and a journalist by practice. There's
Speaker 2: a there's a whole bunch of law schools. The more
Speaker 2: law schools than we probably need. There aren't enough medical schools.
Speaker 2: Why can't we get more medical schools opened in this
Speaker 2: country on shore.
Speaker 3: Dan, I completely agree with you with about the our
Speaker 3: paucity of medical schools. I think that and I think
Speaker 3: there are two parts of it. One is how many
Speaker 3: medical schools. The other is how many students per class. Yes,
Speaker 3: and let me just say, and I am not casting
Speaker 3: as persons at anybody, but this is such a in
Speaker 3: my opinion, the over regulated process in the United States.
Speaker 3: Everyone knows we need more doctors, and we can train
Speaker 3: more doctors, and so I one of the things that
Speaker 3: I am pushing hard for is for us to do
Speaker 3: just what you suggested and to have larger medical school classes.
Speaker 3: I think we can train people using new technology and
Speaker 3: ways that their training will be just as good, if
Speaker 3: not better, and we'll be able to provide many more
Speaker 3: physicians in the United States.
Speaker 2: Doctor Runky, what I would love to do with you
Speaker 2: if possible, because we're limited in this format. We do
Speaker 2: four interviews during this eight o'clock hour, but I'm on
Speaker 2: the ear from eight to midnight Monday through Friday. Could
Speaker 2: I convince you to come back with us somenight do
Speaker 2: an hour maybe a little later in the evening, and
Speaker 2: be able to entertain questions from callers and talk about
Speaker 2: this very subject. I know that, for example, the University
Speaker 2: of Massachusetts Medical School here in Worcester, Massachusetts, it only
Speaker 2: has room for about one hundred and twenty medical students
Speaker 2: every year, and it seems to me that we need more.
Speaker 2: And you are one of the first people in position
Speaker 2: of authority as the dean of a medical school who
Speaker 2: I think are on the same page with me. And
Speaker 2: I'm kind of doing this as a little bit of
Speaker 2: a little bit of a project or a campaign to
Speaker 2: make people more aware of this. Would you be willing
Speaker 2: to come back some night and spend an hour talking
Speaker 2: about this and incorporate phone calls from across the country.
Speaker 3: Well, Dan, I would love to do that. I'd love
Speaker 3: to hear what people are thinking and their questions and
Speaker 3: their thoughts.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: The only caution I throw is you may get pretty
Speaker 3: sick of me after an hour by speaking. But I'd
Speaker 3: love to be there.
Speaker 2: I don't think so at all. I can tell that
Speaker 2: you know a lot of people you know don't remember
Speaker 2: that when when we when President Reagan invaded Granada, Grenada,
Speaker 2: back in the nineteen eighties, it was to free medical
Speaker 2: students who had been held out and for those young
Speaker 2: young people, it became very dangerous. And I want to
Speaker 2: see us train enough doctors in America. And I know
Speaker 2: and I have some stories of kids who I have
Speaker 2: advocated for who come out of the best universities and
Speaker 2: have great This is a subject you and I might
Speaker 2: connect on. And I thank you so much. And I'm
Speaker 2: going to have my producer get back to you'r a
Speaker 2: PR person who I believe her name is deb and
Speaker 2: we will we will set this up in the not
Speaker 2: too distant future, and we also can spend more time
Speaker 2: talking about some of the emerging technology.
Speaker 3: Sounds great, Dan, I'll look forward to it.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Doctor Marshall Rungey, somehow a relative
Speaker 2: of a famous Major League umpire, but more importantly the
Speaker 2: dean of the University of Michigan Medical School, Doctor Ruggie,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to our next conversation.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Dan, You're very welcome.
Speaker 2: When we get back, we're going to change topics. We're
Speaker 2: going to talk about an event coming up at Gillette
Speaker 2: Stadium this very this very weekend, a monster gym. I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk with the driver of a month. I
Speaker 2: think these are the big truck things we'll talk with
Speaker 2: Colt Stevens right after the break here in w b Z.
Speaker 2: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WAZ Boston's
Speaker 2: news radio.
Speaker 5: All right, Well, there's a lot going on around New
Speaker 5: England this weekend, and if you're a fan of Monster Jam,
Speaker 5: you should be out at Gillette Stadium tomorrow, April twelfth
Speaker 5: with Me's Colch Stevens, one of the drivers.
Speaker 2: Hi, Cold, how are you tonight?
Speaker 4: Let's go on, man, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is this your first trip to Jewett or to
Speaker 2: Boston or you been out in the circuit for a while.
Speaker 4: Oh, We've been out on tour for a little bit
Speaker 4: this year. But this is actually my second time here
Speaker 4: at Jellete Stadium. I came back I believe in twenty
Speaker 4: seventeen driving the Zombie Monster Jam truck. But this is
Speaker 4: the first time for my brand new truck to come here.
Speaker 4: I'm super excited. I always have a great time. I
Speaker 4: absolutely love Jellette Stadium. I was looking at the track earlier.
Speaker 4: It was a little bit damp, but I'm excited. It's
Speaker 4: looking good. Cannot wait.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope the weather gets a little better for tomorrow.
Speaker 2: The forecast is a little what they call inclement the
Speaker 2: weather guys. But how much dirt is brought in for
Speaker 2: the Monster Jams, my mind is dating. It's quite a bit.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, there's no doubt of it. There's around four
Speaker 4: hundred loads of dirt that come in. It's amazing to
Speaker 4: watch the dirt crew and how they can transform a
Speaker 4: football field or a stadium like that. Bring the dirt in.
Speaker 4: We'll do an event completely awesome, big hills, jumps, cars,
Speaker 4: everything out there. Then they'll completely remove everything within a
Speaker 4: day and it looked like we were never even there.
Speaker 4: So it's pretty cool. Yeah, we have a lot of dirt.
Speaker 2: I assume they must put some sort of a tarp underneath.
Speaker 2: They're not just putting it down on the field, right. Yeah.
Speaker 4: They actually have some videos on Monster Jam's website showing
Speaker 4: how they do it at some of the stadiums, but
Speaker 4: a lot of times it's a couple layers of actual
Speaker 4: plywood that go down and then yeah, tarp as well,
Speaker 4: so and it cleans up really nicely.
Speaker 2: Excellent. Excellent. So now you guys are on tour. What
Speaker 2: months of the year does this basically take up your existence?
Speaker 4: Well, Master dam does go year round, but our tour
Speaker 4: really goes all the way into world Finals. This year
Speaker 4: world finals is July fourth and it's in Salt Lake City,
Speaker 4: So we're going from January all the way until July,
Speaker 4: and each weekend is a point series. This tour is
Speaker 4: all together. There's five tours all around the country going on,
Speaker 4: but this is East Stadium Tour and we're all trying
Speaker 4: to get as many points as possible to make it
Speaker 4: the world Finals. Because only the guy that gets the
Speaker 4: most points on this tour and wins the tour is
Speaker 4: guaranteed to bid the world Finals, and that's what we're
Speaker 4: all shooting for.
Speaker 2: Okay, now, Cold, let me ask you how do you
Speaker 2: become a monk? Tell me how you became a monster
Speaker 2: jam driver. I'm sure when you were, you know, ten
Speaker 2: years twelve years old, you might have been thinking about driving,
Speaker 2: but I mean you probably were not thinking about the
Speaker 2: vehicles that you're driving. Explain to people who may not
Speaker 2: have seen it, how high you are up off the
Speaker 2: ground and what you were trying to achieve to pile
Speaker 2: up those points.
Speaker 4: All right, multiple things. So, first off, I'm a second
Speaker 4: generation driver, so this is part of my lifestyle group
Speaker 4: around it. I absolutely love it. It's monster jam has
Speaker 4: been a part of my life. But then these trucks
Speaker 4: are twelve foot tall. So we're sitting in the middle
Speaker 4: of these trucks. It's a full tube, Chassie, twelve dollars,
Speaker 4: thousand pounds. We're on sixty sixteen saw tires and we're
Speaker 4: pushing about fifteen hundred horsepower. So it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: It's wild and crazy and as far as what to expect,
Speaker 4: expect the unexpected. We're out there in these trucks. I
Speaker 4: just said they're twelve thousand pounds, but imagine this. They're
Speaker 4: flying thirty forty feet in the air. We're doing backflips,
Speaker 4: we're doing crazy Ballerina moves if you will, up on
Speaker 4: the front two tires, doing moonwalks, we're doing sidewalls, We're
Speaker 4: driving bicycles down the side of the lanes. You know,
Speaker 4: it's crazy what we can do in these trucks. You
Speaker 4: have to see it in person to actually get a
Speaker 4: grasp on it. And the biggest thing is you want
Speaker 4: to come to the pit party. You want to come
Speaker 4: see what these trucks look like up close to personally.
Speaker 4: You can watch it on YouTube. You can watch it
Speaker 4: on TV or whatever you see. But until you actually
Speaker 4: see these trucks up close and see how big they
Speaker 4: are and how big the jumps are that we're hitting,
Speaker 4: you really can't grasp it. And I'll tell you what,
Speaker 4: you definitely need to check it out.
Speaker 2: Well, hopefully a lot of my listeners will check it out.
Speaker 2: It's at you let tomorrow. I assume that they can
Speaker 2: get tickets. They can probably go on to a waite,
Speaker 2: but they probably also can show up and buy them
Speaker 2: at the gate.
Speaker 4: Is that true, Yeah, sir, But go to monster jam
Speaker 4: dot com. You can check it out. You can get
Speaker 4: all the information all the times. I do know that
Speaker 4: the event starts at five o'clock. Now you can come
Speaker 4: to the pit party general emissions at twelve thirty, and
Speaker 4: then we also have an early access where you can
Speaker 4: really skip all the lines and everything that starts at
Speaker 4: eleven thirty. But check it out. Monster jam dot com
Speaker 4: has you dialed in, you'll be able to get all
Speaker 4: the information you need.
Speaker 2: Well, that's perfect monsterjam dot com. And I suspect that
Speaker 2: this is an event that all ages, kids as well
Speaker 2: as adults, grandparents and regular parents. I assume it spans
Speaker 2: the spectrum.
Speaker 4: There's no doubt about it. We always laugh about it,
Speaker 4: but it's one hundred percent true. Bring everybody from the
Speaker 4: littlest kid all the way up to your grandma. They're
Speaker 4: all gonna have a fantastic time. It's so much fun
Speaker 4: for the entire family. And we got that brand new
Speaker 4: thunder Roars truck that I'm driving this weekend. You don't
Speaker 4: want to miss it. Bring the roar. I'm excited.
Speaker 2: Well, Cold, let me Cold. Let me just say, first
Speaker 2: of all, love your passion, love your enthusiasm. You represent
Speaker 2: the sport very very well. Thanks for what you do.
Speaker 2: Stay safe and best of luck this weekend. Out at you.
Speaker 2: Let sounds to me like you're not going to need
Speaker 2: any luck. You may need a little bit of a
Speaker 2: of an umbrella, but that's that's okay, that's that'll that'll
Speaker 2: make it only much more fun. Thank you so much, Cold,
Speaker 2: enjoy talking with you, all.
Speaker 4: Right, I thank you very much. Can't wait to see you.
Speaker 4: Don't miss it.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll be there, We'll be there. Okay, when we
Speaker 2: got we got a break here for the news at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the Air with Nicole Davis. I'd love
Speaker 2: to be able to give that introduction a few more
Speaker 2: times between now and midnight, and when we get back,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk with Chris Porter, the founder of
Speaker 2: the Lowell Multi Day Celebration of Music and Art. This
Speaker 2: is a festival a little later on this month. This
Speaker 2: one you can put in your calendar and plan for
Speaker 2: it the weekend of April twenty four to the twenty sixth.
Speaker 2: We will talk about that with Chris Porter right after
Speaker 2: the break. My name's Dan Ray. This is Night's Side.
Speaker 2: We've got a lot of activity, a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: to cover. Tonight's stay with us. By the way, if
Speaker 2: you would like to know and you're listening, you're listening
Speaker 2: to Night Side On with Dan Ray on WBZ ten
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Speaker 2: I gonna do is pull that app down, put it
Speaker 2: on whatever type of device you have. You can make
Speaker 2: us your number one precent and you will always be
Speaker 2: only a fingertip away no matter where you are in
Speaker 2: the world. With WBZ Boston, my name's Dan Ray. Be
Speaker 2: back right after the news at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back everybody, Thank you, Nicole. Going to
Speaker 2: talk with Chris Porter. Chris is the festival f owner
Speaker 2: of Lowell, Massachusetts, multi day celebration of music and art.
Speaker 2: It's called the Town and the City Festival, running from
Speaker 2: April twenty fourth to the twenty sixth, which is a
Speaker 2: Thursday through Saturday later this month. Chris Porter, Welcome to
Speaker 2: Night's Side. How are you, sir.
Speaker 6: I'm doing great, Dan, Thanks so much for having me
Speaker 6: on your program.
Speaker 2: For some reason, I think we might have done this
Speaker 2: year ago, and I'm not sure if you were here,
Speaker 2: if we were together or not, but I believe we
Speaker 2: talked about it a little bit, but it sounded a
Speaker 2: year ago like a great event. Tell us about this
Speaker 2: year's activities.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, I've been on busy before. I appreciate all
Speaker 6: the support and interest. Yeah, this is the sixth year
Speaker 6: of the Town and the City Festival. It's amazing. It's
Speaker 6: been a nice run. We started in twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 6: it's been growing and it's been a wonderful event. As
Speaker 6: you mentioned, some multi day music and arts festival takes
Speaker 6: place in various men spaces, bars, cafes, galleries, even a
Speaker 6: church throughout downtown Lowell, Massachusetts. I call it a sort
Speaker 6: of a venue hopping experience. While people could purchase tickets
Speaker 6: for an individual show, we really encourage people to get
Speaker 6: day passes so that which is put they give a
Speaker 6: little wristband and you can kind of bop around a
Speaker 6: different venues and experiences as much as you want. We
Speaker 6: have twelve participating venues throughout downtown Lowell, over sixty performances
Speaker 6: over those three days. The Thursday night, it's one kickoff
Speaker 6: show that we're doing. A couple of nationally known acts,
Speaker 6: Lady Lamb and Ezra Firman are playing that evening. And
Speaker 6: then on Friday the twenty fifth and Saturday the twenty sixth,
Speaker 6: we have a multitude of things happening, mostly music, but
Speaker 6: we do have some comedy and some spoken word poetry
Speaker 6: events as well. We have Friday evening it's going on,
Speaker 6: and then Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening a lot of
Speaker 6: different things are going on.
Speaker 2: So I'm a little confused. I know Lowell's a city,
Speaker 2: why is it called the Town and the City Festival.
Speaker 2: It's not a town?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well yeah, although some people who live there, and
Speaker 6: I grew up in Lowell, so it's sort of like
Speaker 6: a town and kind of like a city, but it's
Speaker 6: not the reason why we call it that. That is
Speaker 6: a that is a nod to Jack Kirewuac, one of
Speaker 6: our most famous UH people from who grew up in Lowell.
Speaker 6: His very first book was called The Town and the City.
Speaker 6: It was largely about although he used the fictional name,
Speaker 6: it was largely about Lowell. And this isn't meant to
Speaker 6: be a Jack. When I started this, I didn't want
Speaker 6: to necessarily do a Jack Herewuack scened event Uh. There
Speaker 6: already is another one that goes on there. But I
Speaker 6: wanted to celebrate the spirit of Jack as far as
Speaker 6: you know, things he wrote about about discovery and UH
Speaker 6: and love of life and all that. And we do
Speaker 6: have some Cure Wuac esque sort of programming, Like I said,
Speaker 6: this poetry, we've had some literary programming here and there.
Speaker 6: There have been mus tributes and actually there's one band
Speaker 6: that is doing a music tribute to to Get Here
Speaker 6: at Waka on the on the Saturday. So I mean
Speaker 6: we have you know, So that's the kind of the
Speaker 6: element is. But it's mostly meant to be a celebration
Speaker 6: of Lowell of a lot of the local music. And
Speaker 6: we we have nationally touring artists as part of this,
Speaker 6: but I like to fly the local flag, so to speak.
Speaker 6: And there are a lot of Lol based performers and
Speaker 6: Boston based performers playing at it as well. But there's
Speaker 6: a Jack here whack underlying team with it and so
Speaker 6: hence the name.
Speaker 2: So how's Lowell doing these days? If I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2: You have, of course good Good College up there, University
Speaker 2: of Lowell at hockey Good Hockey College hockey at the
Speaker 2: Saugus Arena. Is that also used as a venue for
Speaker 2: for the Fleet, the women's National Hockey League team.
Speaker 6: Right, yeah, the Boston Fleet play there, That's right. I
Speaker 6: wish I wish my festival was a little bigger, that
Speaker 6: I could put some conscience on there quite at that
Speaker 6: point yet, but it's it's another exciting aspect of role
Speaker 6: for sure.
Speaker 2: So but the city seems to be doing a little better.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a you know, it's a city that
Speaker 2: has a tremendous history. Anybody who's ever been to Loll
Speaker 2: knows the history of Loll and what an important city
Speaker 2: it was, and it still is. But there's a history
Speaker 2: as well as again, you know, areas that are being
Speaker 2: developed on is it is it? Is it getting better
Speaker 2: in Lowll? It seems to me every time I go there,
Speaker 2: it looks better, it feels better. But I'm not there
Speaker 2: every day of the week. Tell me, tell me how's
Speaker 2: the city doing.
Speaker 6: I think it's doing great. I mean it's going through
Speaker 6: a little change right now. We unfortunately lost a great
Speaker 6: marketplace called Mill number five had.
Speaker 4: To close, although a lot.
Speaker 6: Of those vendors are going to another building fortunately, but
Speaker 6: that was, you know, one of a number of examples
Speaker 6: of repurposed mills there that are becoming you know, whether
Speaker 6: they're becoming some summer conc wasn't a apartments. Some have
Speaker 6: been for companies, but some have been for marketplaces also,
Speaker 6: like for instance, one of the venues we used taff
Speaker 6: at a music hall that is housed at Western av Studios,
Speaker 6: which has been around for a few years. But it's
Speaker 6: this an enormous sort of artist colony it's something like
Speaker 6: three hundred visual artists have their studios and or they
Speaker 6: live there, and there's a brewery there and a coffee
Speaker 6: shop and and this music venue. And you know, when
Speaker 6: I was growing up in Lowll it's stuff like that,
Speaker 6: it felt like nothing like that would have happened, you know,
Speaker 6: And so I look at Lowell as is really with
Speaker 6: different eye over the last in my opinion, the last
Speaker 6: ten years, it's become a much more interesting place there's
Speaker 6: been as far as culture is concerned. It's been place
Speaker 6: for visual art for many years. There are a lot
Speaker 6: of galleries and and things for for visual artists, but
Speaker 6: the music thing has kind of gone up and down
Speaker 6: over the years. But right now there you know, when
Speaker 6: the town and the city festival is not happening, I mean,
Speaker 6: they're a handful event music venues that are going on,
Speaker 6: you know, every night of the week, or most nights
Speaker 6: of the week. When I was growing up, I mean
Speaker 6: sometimes there would be one, but lots of times we
Speaker 6: had no music venue unless it was somebody big playing
Speaker 6: at the Lowe Memorial Auditorium. So it's I I And
Speaker 6: also it's a place that well, you know, every place
Speaker 6: can be expensive relatively speaking, But relatively speaking, it's much
Speaker 6: more less expensive to live there than Boston, Cambridge, some
Speaker 6: of all that whole you know, general, the big city area.
Speaker 6: And so I know so many creatives that have been
Speaker 6: moving up to Lowell in recent years. I had a
Speaker 6: number of friends who just get priced out of the
Speaker 6: Boston area gone up there and they do their music
Speaker 6: or art or whatever they work on up there, and
Speaker 6: so it's it's it's been really inspiring. I've seen I'm
Speaker 6: very bullish on what's going on in a lot of
Speaker 6: small cities all over the country. One of my inspirations
Speaker 6: for the town the city is a festival in Boise,
Speaker 6: the Idaho called tree Fort Music Fest, which is bigger
Speaker 6: than what we do, but it's along the same lines.
Speaker 6: And I went to it once. You know, we can
Speaker 6: do something like this in Lowell, you know, why not?
Speaker 6: You know, And I've seen it in that as a
Speaker 6: similar festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. And and I can put
Speaker 6: to other cities of the same same size, and you
Speaker 6: would think to you know, think that, you know, so
Speaker 6: it's really cool. Stuff doesn't have to happen in Boston
Speaker 6: or Cambridge. You know, you can you can find it
Speaker 6: in places like Lowell and Portsmouth, and I can name
Speaker 6: other places as well.
Speaker 2: But well, questioning, well, yeah, well, I got to tell
Speaker 2: you I'm so happy to hear that, because I'm a
Speaker 2: big advocate of that. You hear the stories that you know,
Speaker 2: well someone can't find uh an inexpensive apartment on Beacon Hill.
Speaker 2: Well there's probably a reason for that, you know. It's
Speaker 2: it's kind of what we call supply and demand economics.
Speaker 2: But you can go to any of these great cities
Speaker 2: in the greater Boston area. Uh, A lot of people
Speaker 2: are now able to work remotely. That's that's a new opportunity.
Speaker 2: And there's also businesses and and employment opportunities. Everybody feels, well,
Speaker 2: I got to live in Soho in New York City
Speaker 2: or you know, or worse, in the village. And if
Speaker 2: I don't live in I have to live in the
Speaker 2: Back Bay or Beacon Hill or maybe the South End.
Speaker 2: I'll slum it and go to the South End. And
Speaker 2: those are all high end places that you've got to
Speaker 2: spend five thousand dollars a month just to live. And
Speaker 2: there's a point of reality here, I mean where you
Speaker 2: got to say to yourself, look, at some of these
Speaker 2: other cities. And that's why I'm excited to have you.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to celebrate the town and the City Festival
Speaker 2: and in a lot of and I hope a lot
Speaker 2: of people take advantage of this. It's two weekends, well
Speaker 2: it's really one weekend from now. When you think of it,
Speaker 2: it's not this weekend, it's the it's the following weekend.
Speaker 2: And get up there and experience the city. You might
Speaker 2: find a better place to work and a better place
Speaker 2: to live, which is not going to cost you an
Speaker 2: arm and a lake Lowell, Massachusetts. So Chris, I'm big
Speaker 2: on Lowell and I'm thrilled to hear your enthusiasm because
Speaker 2: that's what that's what Lowell needs, people like you who
Speaker 2: stick with it and make this city. Let it come back,
Speaker 2: let it keep on coming back. And I just want
Speaker 2: to say thanks very much for what you do. Well.
Speaker 6: I really really appreciate that, Dan, it's a sweet words
Speaker 6: and I appreciate your interest in support. And I hope
Speaker 6: everybody can check out the Town and the City Festival
Speaker 6: for more information. Just go to the Town in the
Speaker 6: City Festival dot com, give them links to tickets there
Speaker 6: and learn about all the different performers and bands. Like
Speaker 6: I said, there's some nationally recognize that, there's some locals,
Speaker 6: and there's a lot of stuff in a big discovery
Speaker 6: thing too. Don't just go and see your favorites, you know,
Speaker 6: find your new favorite band at the Town and the
Speaker 6: City festival.
Speaker 2: I like to say, I think what you need is
Speaker 2: a slogan and get some bumper strips up there. It's
Speaker 2: happening in Lowell something like that. That market, that city.
Speaker 2: It is a great city. It's got great restaurants. I'm
Speaker 2: Bullish and low and so you're always welcome here. Chris,
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you so much. We'll talk soon. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, thanks, all right, thanks again. Well we get back.
Speaker 2: Caution you. We're going to talk with doctor Fami Farhar.
Speaker 2: He's a cardiologist, and he tells us he's gonna tell
Speaker 2: us that skipping meals may actually increase the risk of
Speaker 2: heart attack. You'll want to listen up. And then, as
Speaker 2: I said, beginning at nine o'clock to I'm going to
Speaker 2: be talking with former Superior Court judger in Massachusetts, Christopher J.
Speaker 2: Muse Justice under God. He was the attorney. He and
Speaker 2: his dad were the attorney for Bobby Joe Leister, which
Speaker 2: was one of the It was a herculean battle in
Speaker 2: which they fought for this man's freedom, unjustly convicted for
Speaker 2: crime that he had nothing to do with. I know
Speaker 2: a little bit about that concept. But Chris Muse is
Speaker 2: going to be a great guest. I have just read
Speaker 2: the book today. It is a great book. We'll talk
Speaker 2: with him and then we're going to talk later on
Speaker 2: tonight with a home remodeler. I think if you're interested,
Speaker 2: you may find that one very interesting. And then at
Speaker 2: eleven tonight, Yeah, you're brushed with celebrity. Let's have fun
Speaker 2: in that final hour time and we'll get you to
Speaker 2: the weekend. Back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on w B Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, one or to welcome to our program, doctor
Speaker 2: Fami Farha, doctor Farhran, Welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 4: How are you, sir, find Jane.
Speaker 7: Well, it's great to be back on your show.
Speaker 2: Fami. I did not realize that you were a female.
Speaker 2: I apologize for that. I have never seen the name
Speaker 2: Fami before. Welcome to our show. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: And you're a cardiologist and you have a warning for
Speaker 2: my listeners, and that is that skipping meals, which a
Speaker 2: lot of people do, could complicate their lives with a
Speaker 2: greater likelihood of heart attacks. Tell us about it.
Speaker 7: Yes, you know, meals are very important, especially certain meals
Speaker 7: such as breakfast, just because what we eat in the
Speaker 7: morning when we first wake up, that kind of sets
Speaker 7: the stage for the rest of the day in terms
Speaker 7: of our hormone regulation. It's an important hormone regulation. For example,
Speaker 7: your insulin, which is the main hormone that kind of
Speaker 7: determines It's called a storage hormone, like how your calories
Speaker 7: are going to be taken care of for the rest
Speaker 7: of the day. And so eating a good, healthy breakfast
Speaker 7: is very important for your overall health and particularly your
Speaker 7: heart health.
Speaker 2: So I understand that, and I do the same breakfast
Speaker 2: every morning, which is I have a cereal that I
Speaker 2: eat and I put fruit, bananas, blueberry, strawberries, and coffee
Speaker 2: and that gets me through most of the day. I
Speaker 2: will have a piece of fruit or something like that
Speaker 2: at lunch. So I'm not a heavy eater. I lost
Speaker 2: thirty five pounds a few years ago, and I will
Speaker 2: have a regular dinner. Tonight, I had fish and some vegetables.
Speaker 2: Am I in dangering myself? I'm not somebody who sits
Speaker 2: and has a lunch with you know whatever, you know,
Speaker 2: a burger and fries or something like that. Are people
Speaker 2: like me who are kind of cutting back on their
Speaker 2: caloric intake? Are they the people you're worried about or
Speaker 2: or not? I mean, I'm just I am concerned whenever
Speaker 2: I talk to a doctor and I think to myself,
Speaker 2: am I doing something here that is not helping me?
Speaker 2: Not at all.
Speaker 7: In fact, I think what you're doing is more along
Speaker 7: the side of being healthy. So I'm not worried about
Speaker 7: the group of folks who are cutting back on their calories. It's,
Speaker 7: in fact the opposite. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 7: information out there nowadays, especially on social media things like TikTok.
Speaker 7: Anyone can post a lot of information out there. Whether
Speaker 7: that's true or not, it's questionable. So getting your source,
Speaker 7: you know, like what tours you're getting information from, is
Speaker 7: very important. And so you know, like, like the topic
Speaker 7: we're discussing is so important. I don't think that decreasing
Speaker 7: calorie intake and eating a healthy, balanced, nutritious meals is
Speaker 7: that that's what we want you to do. So that's
Speaker 7: not the group of people that we worry about.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm not sure if this is a fair question.
Speaker 2: Maybe this should be the question for a nutrition it's
Speaker 2: not a cardiologist. But I remember many years ago when
Speaker 2: they sort of flipped the food pyramid on its head.
Speaker 2: You know, we were told that these were the things
Speaker 2: that were good, and these were the things that weren't good.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, the new food myriamid
Speaker 2: came out and things that were good weren't so good,
Speaker 2: and things that had been bad actually were pretty good.
Speaker 2: I don't know. You sound as if you're a lot
Speaker 2: younger than I am. You may not remember when the
Speaker 2: food pyramid got a very different configuration. And and the
Speaker 2: reason I ask you that question is a lot of
Speaker 2: people kind of said, oh, that's good, meat was good
Speaker 2: for you and all of this, and then it became
Speaker 2: just the opposite. Now, again, you're the cardiologists. You deal
Speaker 2: with people who who need to be concerned about their heart.
Speaker 2: Why is it that we can't figure out, meaning the
Speaker 2: medical community at large can't figure out exactly what is
Speaker 2: good and what is bad, because that did lead to
Speaker 2: some confusion. If you you probably don't remember it, but
Speaker 2: you certainly know of what I speak.
Speaker 3: I hope, I am.
Speaker 7: Yes, I'm aware of the change in the food pyramid.
Speaker 7: But to clarify, the medical community has figured out what's
Speaker 7: good and you know, like, yes, there was some confusion
Speaker 7: with the food pyramid turning upside down, but that is
Speaker 7: you know, like too much meat is not good for you.
Speaker 7: So we do have plenty of research done and we
Speaker 7: do know now what's good for us. We know that
Speaker 7: plant based diet is excellent for us, like you know,
Speaker 7: that actually is the way to go. And the new
Speaker 7: guidelines per American he Association, you will see there's a
Speaker 7: big push towards plant based dies. What we don't want
Speaker 7: people to do things that are high in cholesterol, things
Speaker 7: that are processed, things that have high sodium content. Those
Speaker 7: are proven to be wrong and there's no confusion about it.
Speaker 7: The things that have high cholesterol, fatty items, things that
Speaker 7: are high in preservatives, high in sodium, those are bad
Speaker 7: for us, bad for our overall health and certainly for
Speaker 7: our cardiovascular health. And things that are like you know,
Speaker 7: more fruits and vegetables, particularly vegetables, We know those are
Speaker 7: good for us. And there's nothing wrong with taking those.
Speaker 7: So there's no confusion about that part.
Speaker 2: Okay. Now I got to ask you about two things.
Speaker 2: I have a cardiologist who's a great friend, and he
Speaker 2: said to me, there's nothing wrong with a little dark
Speaker 2: chocolate every day. I hope that that still holds, that.
Speaker 3: It is correct.
Speaker 4: That is correct.
Speaker 7: Yes, I completely agree with that. So dark chocolate is
Speaker 7: healthy for you and for your heart health. Of course,
Speaker 7: it needs to be done in moderation. And it's not
Speaker 7: the chocolate that we worry about, it's what the chocolate
Speaker 7: is prepared with. So you know, candy is where we
Speaker 7: typically find the chocolate, and candy can have a lot
Speaker 7: of sugar, and you know, fat and cholesterol content could
Speaker 7: be high as a result, and so we need to
Speaker 7: be cautious of that. Like, it's not that chocolate itself
Speaker 7: that's bad, it's everything.
Speaker 2: Else in it. Okay. And then the other question, which
Speaker 2: is important to ask red wine. Please tell me red
Speaker 2: wine is okay.
Speaker 7: I get asked this question quite a bit. I know, yes,
Speaker 7: so it's it's it's a I hate to be the
Speaker 7: very bad news for you. But a couple of years ago,
Speaker 7: we had a large that came was an international study
Speaker 7: that looked at a couple of million people actually, and
Speaker 7: we now have proof that any amount of alcohol is
Speaker 7: not good for us. Alcohol is considered a toxin for
Speaker 7: the heart, health and overall body, and red wine is
Speaker 7: no different. The reason I think there's a little bit
Speaker 7: of confusion, and for a long time, you're right, red
Speaker 7: wine was it got this reputation of being good and
Speaker 7: healthy for you because it has a component that has
Speaker 7: like you know, antioxidant and things like that. But that's
Speaker 7: aside from the alcohol component in it. And so the
Speaker 7: content of alcohol being in it, the little benefit it
Speaker 7: has is totally offset by the harmful effects it has.
Speaker 7: So we don't promote drinking any alcohol at all anymore,
Speaker 7: not even red wine.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, okay, I'm one for two, I'm bat in
Speaker 2: five hundred. I'm okay with that, Doctor Fami far Thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Cardiology Board Certified invasive cardiologists. By the way,
Speaker 2: I always like to thank doctors, and I mean this honestly.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the profession you've chosen, and thank you
Speaker 2: for what you do for all of us. I appreciate
Speaker 2: it so much, and thanks for being with us tonight.
Speaker 2: You're a great sport thank you.
Speaker 7: It was my pleasure.
Speaker 2: All right. When we get back, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: with a former Massachusetts Superior Court judge. Chris Muse has
Speaker 2: written a book about the biggest case of his career,
Speaker 2: in a case that most of us will remember, the
Speaker 2: case of Bobby Joe Lisa Lisa, an innocent man who
Speaker 2: spent nearly ten years in jail for a crime he
Speaker 2: did not commit. We'll be talking with Chris Muse and
Speaker 2: Justice under God right after the nine o'clock news