Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZY Boston Radio.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much to call as we start a
Speaker 2: Thursday night edition of Nightside. We'll be here with you
Speaker 2: all the way unto midnight, or just about all the
Speaker 2: way until midnight. My name is Dan Ray, host of
Speaker 2: Nightside with Dan Ray. We will be talking with Congressman
Speaker 2: Seth Moulton, the Democratic congressman from the North Shore. We'll
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about the election from last week,
Speaker 2: which was obviously disappointing to Democrats, perhaps not in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: All the Democrats in the House who are up for
Speaker 2: reelection here survived, but nationally the Democrats took a bit
Speaker 2: of a beating, and Seth Maulten has had some comments
Speaker 2: about maybe the direction of the party and how the
Speaker 2: party needs to focus on some issues that may be
Speaker 2: of greater concern to most Americans. We'll explore that with
Speaker 2: Seth Moulton a little bit later on tonight at ten o'clock,
Speaker 2: we are going to talk about the cabinet nominations of
Speaker 2: President Trump. President elect Trump, but he's also a former president,
Speaker 2: so we can call him president elect or President. I'll decide.
Speaker 2: I think we'll call him president. That's easier. It's one
Speaker 2: of a couple of less syllables, and lots of interesting
Speaker 2: nominations have come forward, some of very well known individuals,
Speaker 2: including Robert F. Kennedy Junior, and also a very controversial
Speaker 2: congressman from Florida. We'll get to all of that a
Speaker 2: little bit later, but first we have our Nightside News update,
Speaker 2: and we talk on this program often about addiction and
Speaker 2: people addiction of different types. We're going to talk with
Speaker 2: an author whose name is faust Orgio fous Razio. Welcome
Speaker 2: to Nightside, Sarah. How are you Dan?
Speaker 3: Thanks for inviting me? I am well. How about yourself?
Speaker 2: Doing great? Doing great? Now? You have written a series
Speaker 2: of books deal with addiction, and as I understand, is
Speaker 2: this your fifth book in this series.
Speaker 3: This is the fifth book in this series, just published yesterday.
Speaker 2: Okay, good timing, good timing, and you the name of
Speaker 2: this book is Road to Recovery, Fixed Your Fix your Addiction.
Speaker 2: But from my reading of what I've seen, you are
Speaker 2: a big believer or a big proponent in that individuals
Speaker 2: can also address their addictions and maybe maybe with some work,
Speaker 2: fix those addictions. Am I reading you correctly?
Speaker 3: You're close? You know I'm really a proponent of getting help.
Speaker 3: It comes down to you in the end. But you know,
Speaker 3: you want to have program guides to get you through
Speaker 3: this theme point you in the right direction, that it's yours.
Speaker 2: Right, But so when you in order to make that
Speaker 2: decision if you're in an addicted state, most people who
Speaker 2: are in an addicted state pursue the dragon, or pursue
Speaker 2: the addiction, however you want to call it. How can
Speaker 2: people who realize that they're dealing with an addiction. And
Speaker 2: by the way, it doesn't have to be an addiction
Speaker 2: of drugs or alcohol. There's other types of addiction. Correct.
Speaker 3: Absolutely in my book, we've got seventeen that I cover.
Speaker 2: Okay, drugs and alcohol obviously are amongst the most dangerous,
Speaker 2: if not the most dangerous, But there are other addictions
Speaker 2: that can cause, you know, problems. Just till a couple
Speaker 2: more out so people will get a sense of the
Speaker 2: breath of your book. Some of the other addictions you
Speaker 2: deal with.
Speaker 3: Food addiction is another addiction, exercise addiction. You know, there's
Speaker 3: just so many, so many different things that people do.
Speaker 3: Even self abuse can become an addiction.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about alcohol and drug addiction. How
Speaker 2: does someone who realizes they have a problem, how did
Speaker 2: they know what to do? Where to go? I mean,
Speaker 2: if you're addicted, your judgment is, by I guess, necessarily impacted.
Speaker 2: So what advice do you have for people who might
Speaker 2: be listening tonight who are addicted but have not reached
Speaker 2: out for help? Where can they go? What can they do?
Speaker 3: You know, that first step is always important, and I
Speaker 3: always tell people if you're not sure, make an appointment
Speaker 3: with your primary care physicians. Start there and just be
Speaker 3: honest with that person. If in fact there's something there,
Speaker 3: he's going to help you. He or she is going
Speaker 3: to help you deal with the physical part of it.
Speaker 3: And then usually they have referrals, you know, psychologists maybe
Speaker 3: that deals with addiction, addiction facilities, hospitals, things like that.
Speaker 3: But just get yourself to the point that you take
Speaker 3: that first step. Start with your doctor.
Speaker 2: Okay, that is that simple and it's straightforward. So then
Speaker 2: Weird does your you as the addicted person? Weird does
Speaker 2: your role comman? You start with it, you want to
Speaker 2: stay with it, But tell us what people will learn
Speaker 2: from you books that they from this particular book, but
Speaker 2: also even your previous books that they don't perhaps understand
Speaker 2: or fully comprehend.
Speaker 3: Sure, you know, I write my books like people are
Speaker 3: going to be in a counseling session, so I don't
Speaker 3: make it, you know, laden with language. I give them
Speaker 3: seven or eight pages on a topic, and then I
Speaker 3: give them the exact steps to do. And if you
Speaker 3: follow those steps, things can work out for you because
Speaker 3: stay committed like anything else. But that's what I do
Speaker 3: with everything. So with all those addictions, I give the information.
Speaker 3: I give the information and the steps about what you
Speaker 3: can do to make it better. And at the end
Speaker 3: of the book, I've got twelve chapters of a program.
Speaker 3: Follow this program it applies to any addiction. Give you
Speaker 3: all the steps in every chapter and can get you
Speaker 3: right to the point that you're working a recovery program.
Speaker 2: What percentage of people in your experience who actually not
Speaker 2: necessarily follow your book, but who actually are addicted and
Speaker 2: decide that they are going to try to beat that
Speaker 2: monkey on their back or the dragon however however people
Speaker 2: view it. What percentage of people who are really committed
Speaker 2: to beating the addiction can beat it? What is thet
Speaker 2: the potential success rate?
Speaker 3: I asume no, it's not, and it's enough and down battle.
Speaker 3: Some people will relapse. The key is that you go
Speaker 3: into this understanding it's a lifetime proposition. If you have
Speaker 3: an addiction, it's not just about the drug or the activity.
Speaker 3: You probably have that addictive personality. Neurologically, things are a
Speaker 3: little bit different. You attach to things and you hold
Speaker 3: on to them. So you want to know it's a
Speaker 3: commitment you're going to make. If you are willing to
Speaker 3: do the work, make the commitment. Keep it on a
Speaker 3: day to day basis. The prognosis is excellent. If you
Speaker 3: decide that you want to cheat a little bit, well
Speaker 3: then you cut your odds down.
Speaker 2: Boy, I'll tell you, how long have you been doing this?
Speaker 2: Sounds like you've been a.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not around the wild.
Speaker 2: So so how can people get the book is out?
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you get it at bookstores or probably the
Speaker 2: easiest way always is Amazon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you can get there anywhere there.
Speaker 3: Both should have it by now. Amazon clearly has it
Speaker 3: by now, both in paperback and as an ebook.
Speaker 2: Now. Some of our authors actually make themselves available to people.
Speaker 2: I have to assume that you'd probably be overwhelmed by
Speaker 2: that offer. But I just want to make give you
Speaker 2: at least the opportunity if if there's way people can
Speaker 2: follow you, get in touch with you, ask questions to
Speaker 2: the internet, what what, what options do people have?
Speaker 3: I know I encourage that and I get back to people.
Speaker 3: Best way is my website. It's my name Foster Gerald
Speaker 3: dot com. Everything about the books, myself, everything is there
Speaker 3: and there's a contact link by all means use it
Speaker 3: if you have a question. As I say, I do
Speaker 3: get back to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now this is the question. Oftentimes what I do
Speaker 2: for a living is I asked questions to which I
Speaker 2: don't know the answers. What got you interested in this? However,
Speaker 2: many decades ago, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I'm a psychologist. I'd been doing this for four
Speaker 3: decades and around nineteen eighty six and I was hired
Speaker 3: as a drug and alcohol specialist in a prison and
Speaker 3: they offered training, so we went out and got certified
Speaker 3: in addiction. So you know, I started with a prison
Speaker 3: population of all places, but you know, brought it to
Speaker 3: the into the private practice, and I've been certified for
Speaker 3: that long and so you know, it's families, it's individuals,
Speaker 3: it's kids, it crosses all the lines. And so I
Speaker 3: continue to do it. It's that, you know, and then
Speaker 3: all the other kind of counseling I do.
Speaker 2: So what attracted you to this in the first place.
Speaker 2: I mean, you went to school and you I assume
Speaker 2: a psychology major, but there's a lot of different roads
Speaker 2: you could take on the psychology path. What got you
Speaker 2: to this area because obviously that you hear a passion
Speaker 2: in your voice about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like anything else with the problems people have.
Speaker 3: I saw the niche. I looked at it and said,
Speaker 3: all right, I can do this. You know, you grow
Speaker 3: up with you know, as a teenager and as a
Speaker 3: college student of people partying. You see, you see the
Speaker 3: damage it's done, you see the overdoses, you see all
Speaker 3: those things. And then you know, I started doing some
Speaker 3: of this and I said, I'm getting good results here
Speaker 3: and people are listening, and I'm learning the program, and
Speaker 3: I just kept ongoing and it's an ongoing thing. I'm
Speaker 3: one of those people that loves to be around people.
Speaker 3: I love people. So you know, you know, if I
Speaker 3: can help somebody, you know, take I'll take that opportunity
Speaker 3: every time.
Speaker 2: Well, fols, I really do appreciate it. The time that
Speaker 2: you've spent with us tonight, and I hope a lot
Speaker 2: of people who find themselves battling the monkey or the
Speaker 2: dragon or whatever people want to call it, that they'll
Speaker 2: reach out for some hell open certainly get the book
Speaker 2: Road to Recovery, fix your addiction. Thanks very much.
Speaker 3: First been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you. We came back on and talk about how
Speaker 2: you can celebrate the holiday, the upcoming holiday, which of
Speaker 2: course is whether you think it's Thanksgiving, Honkah, Christmas, New Year's,
Speaker 2: a lot of holidays coming up by some strolls in
Speaker 2: the Freedom Trail. We'll be back right after this quick
Speaker 2: break on Nightside. You're listening to Nightside with Dan Ray
Speaker 2: and WBZ ten thirty on your AM dial. You can
Speaker 2: follow me on Twitter if you like, just go to
Speaker 2: w at WBZ Nightside, follow me on Instagram. We have
Speaker 2: lots of ways to be in touch with you and
Speaker 2: you conversely to be in touch with us. We'll be
Speaker 2: back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio PORI.
Speaker 2: Well, the holiday season approaches, of course, Christmas is the
Speaker 2: big holiday, but you have Honukah, you have Thanksgiving New
Speaker 2: Year's a lot of people end up going into Boston
Speaker 2: and spend spending some time in the city. And one
Speaker 2: of the great things about Boston is there's so much
Speaker 2: to do. And of course the Freedom Trail Beckons and
Speaker 2: the holiday strolls are starting on November twenty second with
Speaker 2: us is one of the people who guides those strolls.
Speaker 2: His name is Jeremiah. Jeremiah, are you called simply a
Speaker 2: tour guide?
Speaker 4: Well, yes, just basically a tour guyt a Freedom Trail player.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, And so the strolls will run from November
Speaker 2: twenty second, how long I assume into the New year
Speaker 2: or do they when do they stop?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: They stop, you know, at the end of the holiday season,
Speaker 4: so they'll run right into January. I would imagine.
Speaker 2: Okay, have you done this before?
Speaker 4: Oh yes, many many years.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Well, I assume that this is the time
Speaker 2: of year when when most people get a chance to
Speaker 2: be in Boston and they take a tour of the
Speaker 2: Freedom Trail. My understanding, it's a fairly easy stroll, but
Speaker 2: it's about what one a little over one and a
Speaker 2: half miles, Well.
Speaker 4: That would be that would be if we did the
Speaker 4: regular Freedom Trail to which goes from the Common to
Speaker 4: Fanuel Hall. But actually this one is less than a mile,
Speaker 4: so distance was very short, but a lot of stuff
Speaker 4: packed into it, all about the holiday history throughout Boston.
Speaker 2: So what give us a sense to the tours begin
Speaker 2: from the Common? Whereabouts in the Common?
Speaker 4: Well, they begin actually from I believe you know, traditionally
Speaker 4: the holiday tours have actually begun at Fanuel Hall down
Speaker 4: at the Arts Boston booth. Okay, sometimes the regular tours
Speaker 4: begin on on you know, Boston Common, but we'll be
Speaker 4: exploring different historic sites, you know, throughout.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I don't want to confuse people. Let me
Speaker 2: make if I've misspoke here. So the tours in the
Speaker 2: holiday season starting on November twenty second, start at Fannel
Speaker 2: Hall as opposed to the Common.
Speaker 4: They traditionally have. Yeah, I mean maybe perhaps the Freedom
Speaker 4: Trail Fitoundation are doing something different this year, but if
Speaker 4: they did, I haven't heard about it.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, fine, okay, So wherever they start, give us
Speaker 2: an idea of some of the things people would experience
Speaker 2: or be made aware of.
Speaker 4: Well, one thing that we usually do is we look
Speaker 4: at some of the different Christmas trees and holiday holiday
Speaker 4: trees throughout the area. Usually there's a very impressive one
Speaker 4: down at Quincy Market, and of course we always get
Speaker 4: the wonderful you know, holiday tree from Nova Scotia as well,
Speaker 4: you know, which is a gift to us for helping
Speaker 4: them after their terrible Halifax explosions. So we see those,
Speaker 4: we go to places like.
Speaker 2: That was the big explosion of nineteen seventeen, and they
Speaker 2: still remember. It's pretty nice, that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they've never forgotten that, and it's a very touching gesture.
Speaker 4: I guess this is considered a great honor to have
Speaker 4: your tree selected to go to Boston and it arrives
Speaker 4: here with great fan fair every year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So some of the other some of the other
Speaker 2: highlights that they'll that that you folks would talk about.
Speaker 4: We visited the old sites, the former sites excuse me,
Speaker 4: of Philins and Jordan Marsh, which of course were such
Speaker 4: important parts of Boston's holiday tradition in days of view
Speaker 4: where everybody remembers Jordan Marsh is same as Blueberry Muffins,
Speaker 4: and of course Macy's played what was now Philins played
Speaker 4: such a big role in Boston's holiday traditions as well.
Speaker 2: Ye sadly, sadly, a lot of those have have given
Speaker 2: way to to other buildings and other usage, that's for sure. Now,
Speaker 2: are you a Bostonian originally? Did? Did you grow up
Speaker 2: around here?
Speaker 4: I would say yes, but a Bostonian would say, now,
Speaker 4: I grew up outside of Worcester. But I've been in
Speaker 4: Boston for rent thirty years. That's yeah.
Speaker 2: That really goes close enough. So is this a full
Speaker 2: time job? What do you do when you're not giving tours?
Speaker 4: It's what I do full time. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 4: just I just kind of fell into as I've been
Speaker 4: doing them for twenty one years actually, and I mean
Speaker 4: I don't intitute my own horn, but I'm probably one
Speaker 4: of the better known tour guides in the city, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you I assume at other times during the
Speaker 2: year giving tours in the summer. Is there are the
Speaker 2: tour seasons or or is this literally an occupation that
Speaker 2: has you, you know, working every week throughout the year.
Speaker 4: It's pretty much becoming throughout the year thing. When I
Speaker 4: started back in two thousand and three, we only generally
Speaker 4: worked you know, summer, and by this time of year
Speaker 4: it would have curtailed. But in the last decade. It's
Speaker 4: really we've found people want to go on the tours
Speaker 4: all year round.
Speaker 2: So even with we haven't had winter yet. We've had
Speaker 2: a taste of winter the last couple of days. But
Speaker 2: it's supposed to be nicer tomorrow, better, more, a little
Speaker 2: warmer tomorrow. So you still are doing tours in January
Speaker 2: and February, which are probably our traditional worst weather months
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, we're like the postal service. You rain or
Speaker 4: sleet won't won't stop us.
Speaker 2: All right? And and you're in character. You use the
Speaker 2: name Jeremiah, which will leave it at that. The character
Speaker 2: that you represent is someone from England, as I understood it.
Speaker 4: Well, I've never played a character. I've just used my
Speaker 4: regular name.
Speaker 2: I see. Okay, So but are you in costume?
Speaker 4: I am in costume? Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2: What describe to us the costume so we can what
Speaker 2: era are you? Someone from the seventeenth century, eighteenth century?
Speaker 2: Tell us about it.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm on the Freedom Trail tours. I would portray
Speaker 4: an eighteenth century, eighteenth century person, but on their holidays
Speaker 4: strolls very much as that a Dickenzie and Victorian costume
Speaker 4: that we wear. I said something out of a Christmas Carol.
Speaker 2: Really okay, fine, We try to.
Speaker 4: Make it quite festive in that respect, and we deal
Speaker 4: with all kinds of interesting stuff on that holiday stroll.
Speaker 4: Like we point out things like Christmas was not allowed
Speaker 4: in Massachusetts throughout the seventeenth century because the Puritans did
Speaker 4: not did not.
Speaker 2: They were they were they were not. They were not
Speaker 2: party people. There's no question. There's no question about that.
Speaker 4: They were quite grim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they weren't doing they weren't doing the holiday thing,
Speaker 2: that's for sure. So so you essentially assume a character.
Speaker 2: You're not a historical character. Some people on some of
Speaker 2: these tours, they're playing someone who we would have known
Speaker 2: by reputation from the Revolutionary War or from some other
Speaker 2: other time period, your youth, that's right.
Speaker 4: I mean a lot of people will play historic figures.
Speaker 4: I always just played myself, you know. For a few
Speaker 4: days when I started doing this, For a few days,
Speaker 4: I was playing a patriot named Joseph war But then
Speaker 4: I did some research on me, and I turned out
Speaker 4: he was very tall and handsome, and I thought, well,
Speaker 4: that doesn't really fit the bills for me, So I
Speaker 4: just played myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Warren tabn Over in Childstown. There's there's no right question. Yeah,
Speaker 2: no question about that. Well, look, if folks want to
Speaker 2: get tickets for the for the tour, there's got to
Speaker 2: be a website. I assume it's you can probably get
Speaker 2: the day of, but give us the website and it's.
Speaker 4: The Freedomtrail dot org.
Speaker 2: Pretty easy, the Freedom Trail with the article, the word
Speaker 2: the Thefreedomtrail dot org. Well, Jeremiah, thanks very much, and
Speaker 2: I wish you a very successful winter season. Thanks again,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Have a good night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, welcome, we get back. We're going to talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about the retail aspect of the upcoming holiday season.
Speaker 2: Question that we're going to be asking a retail industry
Speaker 2: insider who's who is described as a visionary technology executive
Speaker 2: who specializes in AI currently leads a group called Worldwide
Speaker 2: Ticket Knowledgies Global Enterprise Sales Retail Organization. It's got to
Speaker 2: be a big card, a question, a big business card.
Speaker 2: Is it better now? Is it better to buy now
Speaker 2: or wait until Black Friday, which I think all of
Speaker 2: us know is the day after Thanksgiving when a lot
Speaker 2: of stores talk about sales. Well, we'll get an answer
Speaker 2: to that question from a gentleman by the name of
Speaker 2: Adam Doumey. Right after this break, we've got the news
Speaker 2: coming up first, and then we'll be back with Adam
Speaker 2: Doumy and talk about the retail industry smarted to buy
Speaker 2: now or wait until Black Friday? And then we're going
Speaker 2: to talk with an expert on the top trending gifts
Speaker 2: for twenty twenty four. As shoppers gear up for the
Speaker 2: busy holiday season, I say Christmas season, but whatever your
Speaker 2: holiday is, it's great. It's great to celebrate and give
Speaker 2: gifts and spend time with friends to wrap up the
Speaker 2: year and get started on twenty twenty five. Back good
Speaker 2: Night's Side. Right after this, you're on.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray ONBZ Houston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, with the holiday season approaching, I don't think it's
Speaker 2: upon us yet. Thanksgiving is still a couple of weeks away.
Speaker 2: We start to think about holiday gift giving, Christmas gifts
Speaker 2: and gifts Hanuka on New Year's gifts, and every all
Speaker 2: sorts of gifts. So the question is is it's smarter
Speaker 2: now to buy and maybe get some of those gifts
Speaker 2: taken care of, or do we wait until Black Friday?
Speaker 2: With us is a retail industry insider Adam Dumay. Adam,
Speaker 2: Welcome to Night Side. What's the verdict here? Is it
Speaker 2: better to do buy now or wait? Well? I mean
Speaker 2: I assume if you buy now, most everything's available. Hi, Adam,
Speaker 2: how are you? I?
Speaker 5: I'm well, thank you. I'm taking my prediction to the bank.
Speaker 5: I think it is in consumer's best interest to wait
Speaker 5: until Black Friday. And there's a reason. Right, So if
Speaker 5: you take a step back and think of all the
Speaker 5: distractions that we've had that's pulled our attention away. You've
Speaker 5: had kind of a presidential election, right, I've spent eleven
Speaker 5: billion dollars in ads.
Speaker 2: Just you're telling me that we had a presidential How
Speaker 2: did I miss that?
Speaker 5: It happened. I swear to you. You can factchuck me,
Speaker 5: and so you may be one of a few people,
Speaker 5: but I'm telling you it happened. And then before that,
Speaker 5: we're Olympics, right, We're eighty two percent increase in viewership.
Speaker 5: So we're pulling these different directions. And then, by the way,
Speaker 5: you probably had a couple of rainstorms up north. There
Speaker 5: were three times as many weather disturbances as normal.
Speaker 2: The problem up here is we're in a real serious drought.
Speaker 2: In all honesty, we haven't had a good rainstorm up
Speaker 2: here since sometime in August. And also, wow, by the way,
Speaker 2: just so you know, I cover politics five nights away,
Speaker 2: three hours a night. So I was joking with you, Adam.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, Mom, I was hoping that I was a case.
Speaker 5: I was hoping you also want to be urologist. So,
Speaker 5: but it's interesting, right if you think of this normal
Speaker 5: engage model between retailer consumers, it's been disrupted, and so
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 2: I want to have a conversation with I want to
Speaker 2: assume that if they were aced out of all of
Speaker 2: their advertising because of the one and a half billion
Speaker 2: dollar presidential election, never mind all the Senate in the
Speaker 2: House races that that they got to do something to
Speaker 2: get the young people in stores at this point.
Speaker 5: Sure, and they have. So if you think of retail
Speaker 5: as Walmart, for example, they had their first holiday sales
Speaker 5: events this calend year earlier than ever. Right, you think
Speaker 5: of organizations like Amazon, the Amazon kind of big deal
Speaker 5: day in October, discounts through fourteen percent. So they're doing something.
Speaker 5: But again, we're all creatures that have it, and so
Speaker 5: as significant portion of your consumers just wait until Black
Speaker 5: Friday and think that is the day. And with this
Speaker 5: I mentioned these distractions. I don't think retailers are going
Speaker 5: to try to overcome that. I think they're going to
Speaker 5: accommodate it.
Speaker 2: So the way they caught dated is dropping prices.
Speaker 5: Correct. Yeah, and if you look at last year, no
Speaker 5: one knows what's going to happen this calendar year. But
Speaker 5: if you look at last year as indicative, I don't
Speaker 5: see a reason things would change. The top three categories
Speaker 5: of discounts were toys, apower, and televisions, and if you
Speaker 5: look at the research for twenty twenty four, all of
Speaker 5: those are in the top five categories of persons intent.
Speaker 5: So we want to buy that stuff. And last year
Speaker 5: we saw some big discounts, and I think even larger
Speaker 5: discounts will up here this year.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me ask you this. We do not
Speaker 2: have any sort of supply chain backups that we've had
Speaker 2: other years. We do not have any sort of a
Speaker 2: major strike going on. The teams to strike was put
Speaker 2: off until I think January fifteenth, so there's going to
Speaker 2: be no disruption in the supply chain, which would say
Speaker 2: to me that and this is going to back up
Speaker 2: your theory that if there's no disruption in the supply chain,
Speaker 2: that means the market will be flooded with UH. And
Speaker 2: then if there is a particularly a shortened season where
Speaker 2: people are focusing on this, yeah, the prices are going
Speaker 2: to have to drop. I assume those factors work in
Speaker 2: your in the favor of your argument.
Speaker 5: Or you're yeah, that's absolutely right. And if you look
Speaker 5: at twenty twenty three, retailers have these excessive inventories that
Speaker 5: they all reported in the earnings. This year, they're much
Speaker 5: more level, so there's even an increased desire to clear
Speaker 5: the inventory for new next year's model. And so yeah,
Speaker 5: I think there are many reasons to suggest that that
Speaker 5: is a really great.
Speaker 2: Season for you're talking about you're talking about car dealers,
Speaker 2: they are, right, And when you talk about next year's models.
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, I'm talking about general retailers car dealers.
Speaker 5: It really varies on what which car dealer, for example, model.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, when you were when you use the word models, okay,
Speaker 2: what do you mean by that? Just product?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, So this year's TV set, which is going
Speaker 2: to be the two twenty twenty four model, they're working
Speaker 2: on the twenty twenty five model TV set, and they
Speaker 2: want to be able to bring those out at some
Speaker 2: point after they've sold all the twenty twenty forces.
Speaker 5: What you're telling them, ohat that same analogy for clothing
Speaker 5: and shoes and apparel. But yes, that's exactly right. Retails
Speaker 5: to want to introduce new inventory and this is a
Speaker 5: great tool to help them do that.
Speaker 2: Okay, And you're not concerned that And I'm just playing
Speaker 2: a little Devil's advocate with Look, you know more about
Speaker 2: this than I do. Everybody who I interview knows more
Speaker 2: about this particular product the products that I do, Okay,
Speaker 2: but I try my best. So you're not overly concerned
Speaker 2: that there's going to be some item that people if
Speaker 2: they wait till Black Friday, or some generic type of
Speaker 2: item that if they wait to Black Friday, they may
Speaker 2: find that the shelves are bear right.
Speaker 5: It sounds to be like, yeah, that's a trade off,
Speaker 5: that's a consideration. Absolutely. Am I concerned that that is
Speaker 5: going to detract all the forecasts of your ar increase? No,
Speaker 5: the retailers are so increasingly savvy and they're forcing a
Speaker 5: casting models are so on point that that's it's going
Speaker 5: to happen, but on mass and to detract customers something
Speaker 5: that I don't see that as as Kevin to fruition.
Speaker 2: Okay, and you yourself, do you follow your own guidance here?
Speaker 2: And I say that it's kind of a wise guy question,
Speaker 2: but I could ask wise guy questions. I mean a
Speaker 2: lot of people will say, oh, you know, I never
Speaker 2: fill up my car. I always wait until the guest
Speaker 2: tank is empty, and then you catch it. They should
Speaker 2: top it off with ten dollars. Well, you know you
Speaker 2: never know. Okay, So I assume you follow your own
Speaker 2: advice here.
Speaker 5: They're getting awfully personal Dan in our first conversation. Yes,
Speaker 5: I absolutely do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I ask look, I could have look, I could
Speaker 2: have given you a real hard time and asked you
Speaker 2: how much of a Red Sox fan you want? Are?
Speaker 2: And I know you're not from this area, and you
Speaker 2: probably would have told me you weren't. And then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, when the crowd on my side, totally,
Speaker 2: who do you root for?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 5: I grew up in BRUSA, New York and I was
Speaker 5: a nuts band. So I'm not a nuts band. But yeah,
Speaker 5: that's even worse in New York City.
Speaker 2: Do you know what happened in nineteen eighty six with
Speaker 2: Mookie Wilson at the ball through box News. That's even worse,
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 5: It'd be better if I didn't bring that up. Dan,
Speaker 5: I know part tonight fair enough.
Speaker 2: I'm just having fun with you. So you do follow
Speaker 2: your own advice, and you think one of the things
Speaker 2: that in my last I'd get it. I always get
Speaker 2: a chance to ask questions of experts, which is really fun, okay,
Speaker 2: because I can ask the same questions of people and
Speaker 2: I get wrong answers. One of the things that I
Speaker 2: will hear sometime around Thanksgiving, uh, and I get a
Speaker 2: little worried. I walk into these stores before Halloween and
Speaker 2: I see Christmas decorations. I know, push it. Do you
Speaker 2: think that's good for retail? By pushing it that early on,
Speaker 2: obviously they must think it's good for retail. What do
Speaker 2: you think?
Speaker 5: I think that's a nuanced answer from a retail perspective.
Speaker 5: They're seeing year over year increases, so financially that makes
Speaker 5: complete sense. I do appreciate your point, though, there's something majestic.
Speaker 5: I think about going into a mall and having red
Speaker 5: and green everywhere, and having a mall filled with people
Speaker 5: in that excitement that comes from the holiday that's missing now.
Speaker 5: But from a pure business perspective, the numbers don't lie.
Speaker 5: You know, three to eight percent increase this year is expected,
Speaker 5: and so I think retails would make that trade off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you got you got to my final question.
Speaker 2: You're good, man, You're good. You got right to my
Speaker 2: final question. That is, every year we hear this year,
Speaker 2: well because of the economy, it's good, it's bad, it's different.
Speaker 2: And they'll tell us the average American this year is
Speaker 2: going to spend whatever, you know, dollars or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so the average American is going to buy more this year,
Speaker 2: is what you're telling me. That's right.
Speaker 5: And yeah, there's some categories to have increased spending like
Speaker 5: electronics and clothing, but this year where there's widespread agreement
Speaker 5: anywhere from two and a half so eight and a
Speaker 5: half percent. We'll see you know January first.
Speaker 2: Wow, you've been a great guest. I've given you a
Speaker 2: hard time, but that's hard time. Guess I like, okay,
Speaker 2: because I think you can handle it. Adam. How can
Speaker 2: folks get either in touch with you or more information
Speaker 2: about what you do? I see you're on LinkedIn. Uh,
Speaker 2: is there some sort of a forum where you provide
Speaker 2: advice and suggestions and good good information above and beyond
Speaker 2: your eight or nine minutes with us here on night
Speaker 2: Side today.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I am on LinkedIn. Please look me up, Adam.
Speaker 5: My last name is d U m Eu. I would
Speaker 5: love to continue the conversation. I think there's so much
Speaker 5: more exciting things in retail, including AI and.
Speaker 4: Other trends that I love to talk about.
Speaker 2: Adam, do me retail industry leader. You've been a great guest.
Speaker 2: I really do appreciate it. And you're off beyond that.
Speaker 2: You're a good sport too. Okay, I'm in that series.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks very much, Adam. I enjoyed it all right,
Speaker 2: have a good night you too. We're going to follow
Speaker 2: along with the Shopping Guide and we're going to talk
Speaker 2: with Justin Burr. He's a Google tech expert, and he's
Speaker 2: going to tell us what Google believes will be the
Speaker 2: top trending gifts for twenty twenty four as shoppers gear
Speaker 2: up for the busy holiday season. My name is Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: This is Nightside. We'll be talking with US Congressman from Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: Seth Moulton. Right after the nine o'clock news and then
Speaker 2: later on tonight we're going to talk about the cabinet
Speaker 2: nominations that have been presented by President elect Donald Trump
Speaker 2: at beginning at ten o'clock. Coming right back on Nightside
Speaker 2: with our last, our fourth and final guest of this
Speaker 2: hour of Nightside News Update.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: So we talked last hour about well, the last guest
Speaker 2: with Adam Dumay, the retail industry insider, about whether you
Speaker 2: should buy now we'll wait for Black Friday. Now we're
Speaker 2: going to talk with Justin Burr. He's a Google tech
Speaker 2: expert and he's going to tell us what shoppers are
Speaker 2: gearing up for in the upcoming holiday slash Christmas season. Justin,
Speaker 2: welcome to night Side. How are you tonight?
Speaker 6: Hey, I'm doing great, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Now, maybe a little behind time here, justin better Tickle
Speaker 2: me Elmo Dolls still the most important present you got
Speaker 2: to get for a kid this year.
Speaker 6: Absolutely everybody needs to Tickle me Elmo doll. No, I
Speaker 6: don't think okay.
Speaker 2: If it's not that I'm a little bit of an
Speaker 2: expert here too. So if it's not Tickle Me Elmo,
Speaker 2: it has to be the beanie baby thing, right.
Speaker 6: Ah, man, you're really bringing me back. I love the
Speaker 6: beanie babies. Yeah, God yeah, beanie babies are great. Not anymore, sadly.
Speaker 2: So what's what's the hot new trends? I just having
Speaker 2: fun with you.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, totally.
Speaker 6: Okay. Well, first off, anybody can look at this stuff.
Speaker 6: It's we have a landing page. We pulled together the
Speaker 6: top one hundred best gift ideas based on Google search trends.
Speaker 6: We looked at like forty five billion different search trends.
Speaker 6: So you pull together the holiday one hundred. We do
Speaker 6: this every single year and anyone can look at it.
Speaker 6: So if you remember one thing from this interview, everybody,
Speaker 6: it's G dot co slash holiday one hundred and even
Speaker 6: see what whoa holding right now?
Speaker 2: You go too fast? Me, it's the letter G dot
Speaker 2: c O.
Speaker 6: G dot co and then slash holiday one hundred. So
Speaker 6: one zero holiday one hundred.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be on that tomorrow morning, first thing
Speaker 2: I get up. So what's that gonna tell us?
Speaker 6: That's gonna show you all of the different trending products
Speaker 6: that we have seen trending on Google variety of different
Speaker 6: categories and apparel and accessories, electronics, home and garden, toys
Speaker 6: and games. So I feel like, for me, it's going
Speaker 6: to be a really nice first step in my shopping
Speaker 6: journey because just a lot easier to kind of get
Speaker 6: a little bit of an idea of what's hot, what's not.
Speaker 6: Maybe Cielmo on there, I don't know, but there's a
Speaker 6: lot of good products that you can see to potentially buy.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking this year I want to give people Encyclopedia Britannicas.
Speaker 2: Are they still available on.
Speaker 6: The old CD wrongs exactly? So this is you're really
Speaker 6: going old. So I will say, I will say you
Speaker 6: have the right mindset because one of the trending categories
Speaker 6: that we're seeing on Google is retro coded. So we're
Speaker 6: talking like that old game Signmon where you like tried
Speaker 6: to press the buttons in the same order that they
Speaker 6: light up as record players. Like, all this stuff is
Speaker 6: cyclical and it's coming back.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's why I started with Tickle Me Elmo.
Speaker 2: I don't know how long Tickle Me Elbow has been out,
Speaker 2: but he's got to be coming back around.
Speaker 6: Maybe we should get into the tickle me Elmo business.
Speaker 6: Maybe that's the new hot trend where we've got the vision.
Speaker 2: I so enjoyed this stuff. I worked. I worked for
Speaker 2: many years before I started doing this game talk sho.
Speaker 2: I worked for many years as a reporter up here
Speaker 2: with the CBS affiliate, and I worked mornings because my
Speaker 2: kids were young, you know, they were like six, seven, eight,
Speaker 2: nine years old. So we would show up at one
Speaker 2: of the toys r us or you know those those
Speaker 2: old big toy Stollers. People were lined up like they
Speaker 2: were waiting for Red Sox World Series tickets, and they
Speaker 2: would open the store and it would be a madhouse.
Speaker 2: That seems to have gone away a little bit, right.
Speaker 6: I mean with the online shopping, you don't need to
Speaker 6: wait for like the midnight release of the PlayStation two anymore, right,
Speaker 6: Like you're just online at the right time and you
Speaker 6: click buy, So it's not I mean I remember doing
Speaker 6: the Beanie Baby stuff too, Like me and my mom
Speaker 6: would be waiting in line for the tour store to
Speaker 6: be open to like buy the octopush Beanie Baby before
Speaker 6: everyone else could.
Speaker 2: Like look a time, we used to be able to
Speaker 2: get into the store ahead of time, so we would
Speaker 2: have the camera crews taking pictures of them all, you know,
Speaker 2: fighting and streaming through the door. It looked like WrestleMania.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, we were able to kind of put
Speaker 2: a few things away on the shelf. I did most
Speaker 2: of my Christmas shopping that was over my four thirty
Speaker 2: on Black Friday morning.
Speaker 6: Would you rather do that? Like that's more fun?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Well? It was more fun. But it also I didn't
Speaker 2: have to wrestle with anybody because I could kind of
Speaker 2: prowl the nisles at you know, four thirty to ten
Speaker 2: minutes of five before the first live shots at five am.
Speaker 2: And it was tough to get out, but that one morning,
Speaker 2: that one morning, it made it. So give us a
Speaker 2: couple of the really hot items. You know, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be on your website in the morning and most
Speaker 2: of my audience will be. But give us a couple
Speaker 2: of the really hot items that you think people that
Speaker 2: this the twenty twenty four shopping season will be remembered for.
Speaker 2: You know, who will what will be the Tickle Me
Speaker 2: Elmo of twenty twenty four? What will be the Beautie
Speaker 2: Baby collection of twenty twenty four?
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna give be four
Speaker 6: things here that we're that we're seeing is the top
Speaker 6: trending gifts right now. So one of them is a handbag,
Speaker 6: and that is the coach quilted Tavvy bag. Searches for
Speaker 6: this item hiden all time high this past year. You
Speaker 6: probably don't know what that is. It's like a small
Speaker 6: black person. One of the other things that we're seeing
Speaker 6: is searches for the pillow sack. They soared by over
Speaker 6: six hundred and sixty five percent this year. And this
Speaker 6: is like a huge oversigned bean bag chair. So we
Speaker 6: are seeing the bean bag sort of trend come back a.
Speaker 2: Little bit, baby bean bag, it's just a little bigger,
Speaker 2: that's all. Okay, it's a little bit bigger. You could
Speaker 2: put it under the tree. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 6: Uh, I know I got a bean bag one one
Speaker 6: Christmas when I was a little kid, and that box
Speaker 6: was so big. I was so excited. It was massive.
Speaker 6: I was good.
Speaker 2: Okay, there was what was in the box that you
Speaker 2: remember the box? What was in the box that year?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was it was a bean bag chair. It
Speaker 6: was it was bean bag chair, which was cool.
Speaker 2: Very cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love that things and a couple more good items
Speaker 2: for people to be thinking about.
Speaker 6: Yes, there's a thing called the Tonys Sets t O
Speaker 6: n I S. And this is a it's a toy
Speaker 6: for kids, and search interest for this jumped by over
Speaker 6: five thousand percent this year. And this one's interesting. It
Speaker 6: comes with a variety of different like little figurines, and
Speaker 6: it's like a little box and you put the figurines
Speaker 6: on top and then the box will do certain things
Speaker 6: that will play a different melody or there's like an
Speaker 6: interactive element. So it's it's kind of old school in
Speaker 6: a way that it's like, yeah, it's like a figurine
Speaker 6: sort of action figure type of thing, which is fun.
Speaker 6: And then the last one that I will say rounding
Speaker 6: out the top four here is a is a cosmetic item.
Speaker 6: It's called the Elf Cosmetics Halo Glow Liquid filter, which
Speaker 6: is a thing you put on your lips that makes
Speaker 6: your lips look good. And that search interest has increased
Speaker 6: by over five thousand percent, So big on the lip filter.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me ask you this, are there any
Speaker 2: people who are still out there? And I'm being serious now, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm being totally serious. Now, what you know, the more
Speaker 2: traditional presence baseball, love our hockey stick or for that matter,
Speaker 2: like a Lionel train set? Have train sets? You know?
Speaker 2: Does anyone buy a train set for their kids anymore?
Speaker 6: A man, That's it's a good question. So again I
Speaker 6: I I'm not seeing any sort of like like just
Speaker 6: nothing both sort of old school bread and butter Christmas
Speaker 6: items at least on my top trending list. But what
Speaker 6: you can do again that that link that I mentioned
Speaker 6: earlier g dot co slash Holiday one hundred how to
Speaker 6: look through you know, like there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 6: on here, and again there's one hundred things on it.
Speaker 6: I don't think we're gonna see any toy or any
Speaker 6: like train sets like that type of stuff. Maybe there's
Speaker 6: like a bicycle on there, but again, like I think
Speaker 6: that bicycles are still a popular category. I think what
Speaker 6: what the explanation that I will give you is maybe
Speaker 6: why we're not seeing some of that up is that
Speaker 6: we're looking at the top trending items this year, meaning
Speaker 6: like what is unique this year from years past, And
Speaker 6: there could be a situation in which like rollerblades or
Speaker 6: a certain toy is always popular or bikes are always popular,
Speaker 6: but you want to have a snapshot of like, what's
Speaker 6: popular this year? What makes this year you?
Speaker 2: I'm with you. This what we'll we remember from this year? Justin.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed our conversation. I had fun with it,
Speaker 2: which to me is the most important thing. But more importantly,
Speaker 2: I think we got a lot of good information out
Speaker 2: and we got a website that people can go to tomorrow.
Speaker 2: G dot co slash Holiday one hundred. Really appreciate you
Speaker 2: taking the time tonight. Thanks so much.
Speaker 6: Appreciate it. Hey, thanks so much. I had fun too, Thank.
Speaker 2: You, great, great, great great. We come back on new
Speaker 2: talk with Congressman Seth Molten about the future direction of
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, what sort of adjustments that they have
Speaker 2: to make in view of what happened on election night.
Speaker 2: But nine days ago, it seems like a long time ago.
Speaker 2: It was just nine days ago. We'll be back at
Speaker 2: night side right after the news at nine o'clock