Austin Rhodes, Talk Show Host, Actor, Dad

00:00
Depression runs in my family pretty strong. Three members died from suicide.

00:14
Welcome to another episode of Chewing the Fat. I am your host, Big Robb. Thank you so much for following, downloading, listening to the podcast. I really appreciate that. Thanks for the folks that have written reviews on Apple podcasts. I love getting the email alerts from folks have written a review on there. If you haven't done that, I encourage you to do that if you like the podcast. Give me a five star review. That always helps out. I'm very excited about my guest today. He is going in to 30 years broadcasting

00:44
tomorrow, please welcome the one and only Austin Rhodes. Hello, Big Robb. Hello, sir. Thanks for coming over. Thank you for inviting me. And by the way, it's 30 years of the Austin Rhodes show. I'm actually like 39 in the business at this point. So what was, before we dive into that, because I've got all kinds of questions. Sure. You were born and raised here in Augusta? I was born on Warner Robbins Air Force Base, because my dad was in the service at the time. But Augusta has always been my home.

01:14
I was there, I think, the first three months of my life, and then we moved into an apartment on Montesana Avenue, where we were until we moved into our first house in 1968 in National Hills neighborhood, yeah. Nice, nice. And all that time, so was, were you one of these kids that loved playing radio when you were growing up? I used to have a walkie talkie that I would tape the transceiver button down on

01:44
to my record player and we had I think three or four albums that I had access to and I became very very well acquainted with Dionne Warwick, James Brown and the Mamas and the Papas. Those were the those were the three albums that that I knew I could play. Now I had favorites myself but I was aiming at an adult audience so I didn't play in my monkey's albums because my parents didn't like those. My mother and father ate up Mamas and Papas and Dionne Warwick and James Brown.

02:14
So who had the other walkie talkie? I don't know. I was broadcasting to whoever got it. That's right. Whoever might have that same brand walkie talkie. And I think my mother would listen on occasion or at least she would pretend to. Uh huh. Uh huh. Was I always encouraging? Obviously it sounds like if they were, they were very encouraging of that type of, at that time it was play. I'm sure. How about how old were you? Um, uh, four, five years old, something like that. I mean, you know, creative play is important.

02:44
development. Absolutely. That's one of those things especially if you don't have arts in school in some form or fashion, it's a disservice to kids. Well you're a little bit younger than me. I'm 57 so I grew up in a very unique situation in that I well because I was very very close to both sets of my grandparents I spent an inordinate amount of time in a good way over at their houses and they were of the radio generation. We're the TV generation

03:14
And ironically, that radio station was WGAC. Wow. And I used to listen to Braves games. GAC was the home of the Braves from 66 up until fairly recently. And they're still in the company just on another station now. But I would listen to the Braves games. I would listen to the talk shows. I would listen to the morning and listen to George Fisher in the morning. And that's where my love for radio started. And that's who actually I was trying to be like,

03:44
than Buddy Carr or any of those crazy guys. Actually, Buddy didn't come along until I was in junior high school. So, yeah. Right, right, yeah. So, in all of that time, and you're coming along in school and stuff like that, did you ever have any type of, what were you involved in in school? Did you do like drama? Did you do band, chorus, that type of stuff? Absolutely, I didn't do band or chorus. I did try band briefly, but I was not a band person.

04:14
I got involved with theater when I was in, well, grade school, actually first grade. They were putting on a play called Dudes and Daisies. I was at a school, National Hills Elementary School, that was grade one through seven when I went there in first grade. And one day during lunch, I saw the sixth and seventh graders doing a play. They were practicing. And I was incensed that we weren't allowed to be in it. And I went up and basically pitched a little hissy fit

04:44
God bless her, God rest her soul, stuck me in the play. And to this day, the sixth and seventh graders remember me and tease me about it. I'll see them out and, oh, you're the kid that was in Dudes and Daisies. And it was a bunch of, you know, gay 90s songs. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer to, I'm half crazy all for the love of you. That type of thing. And they put me up, set me up in a little outfit, just like the other guys were all wearing the straw hats and the fake mustaches with the handlebar.

05:14
Mustaches and they stuck and every boy had a girl every dude had a daisy and there was one tiny little short girl Lauren Beatty name. She's now Lauren Bank She's one of the big wigs over to Gustaf Christian and she was mine She was my date in the play because she was the only one short enough to be with the first grader Wow, I don't think she was very happy about that She was very gracious. That's awesome. Yeah, and that's where I got my start in theater. That's great That's great. And you and you you still do theater

05:44
Was it right before COVID shut everything down? I saw you in Mamma Mia with the Augusta Players. Yeah, it was the last show before COVID shut everything down, as a matter of fact. I started, after my dudes and daisies experience, started doing theater whenever I could. I had a music teacher at National Hills named Mrs. Clark, who would not just have the kids sing, you know, here we go around the maypole and all that, but she would bring in records

06:14
us sing with the records and I took to that like a fish to water and you know I was bringing in my Partridge Family albums and my Monkeys albums and my Archie's records that we cut off from the back of Alphabet Cereal and just having a good old time of that stuff and that that kind of got me hooked on public performance even more so and then the first show that I did with the Augusta Players was a collection of one-axe and what we call paper bag

06:44
and the paper bag skits. I mean, these were like little fairy tale things. It just took 10 minutes to do while they changed sets behind the curtain. But we were asked to play juvenile roles in the older kids shows. And I worked with a couple of people that to this day I'm very good friends with. People like Kent Holden and Betty Walpert and Karin Gillespie. And I'm trying to think some of the other names that come to mind from that era. But that was a lot of fun.

07:14
me at that point. The next year I did Midsummer Night's Dream that Joanne Green directed and Kent was in that too as a matter of fact. Christina Rice you know her very talented artist. She was a librarian over in Columbia County for many years, beautiful red hair. She's a very distinctive woman when you see her. She played Queen Titanian. I was one of her fairies. Oh nice. Yeah so that was my entree into the Augusta Players and I loved it, did a lot of it, did a lot of it in school, theater work. Unfortunately when I got into work

07:44
got into the workforce, my hours were too crazy. And the last show that I did was a show called Red, White, and Black in 1987, which was actually not a player's production. It was a special show that was being done in celebration of Georgia's 200th anniversary of the Constitution being ratified. Jim Garvey wrote it. And Matt Stovall was in it. He had the lead. And Jim Garvey was in it. And Steve Walpert directed it.

08:14
played her husband's wife, ironically, Matt Stovall at the time, and trying to remember who else was in that show. Chris Lowe, who's very active in some of Tim Johnson's local films that he's done. Matter of fact, I suggested Chris to Tim Johnson. I still find her sweet for that one. There you go. I think who else was in that show that was fun to think about. But that was my last experience. I just got too busy with work at that point, and I was invited back in

08:44
two invitations within the same week. One came from Barbara Fellman, who wanted me to assist Storyland in kind of getting over the hunt when Matt Stovall passed away. He was very, very active in that group. And I don't want to say take over his roles, but I pretty much did. I became the guy that or the characters that Matt had played for years. And we did Sleeping Beauty. And while we were doing Sleeping Beauty, I got a phone call from, I think it was Richard Justice or Debbie Ballas, both of them,

09:14
if I would play the pervert DJ in Greece. And I was made for that, man, are you kidding me? So that got me back started with the Augusta Players. And I've been very active with Storyland. I've done some things with the Players. And then Mamma Mia hit a couple of years ago. That was a dream come true for me. I was a huge Ava fan when I was a kid. And I saw that show on Broadway back in 99. And it's funny, I don't know about you, because I know that you're very active in theater. When I see a show,

09:44
that's new. I always watched the show with an eye and said, okay, what could I play in this? And I was watching Mamma Mia and I was watching the three dads very carefully and there was one that never sang lead. And I said, wow, I can do that. That's the one. And he's got, they let that character, in case you're not familiar with the show, is three dads, or excuse me, three men, one of whom is the dad to a young bride that's having her wedding that weekend and she's invited the three

10:14
dads, the three perspective dads. And one of them, Bill Austin, believe it or not, is his name in the play, is generally speaking one of several different nationalities, depending on who's doing the show. In the movie, they turned him into a Swede, simply as a nod back to the original material that the- Right, from the music. From the music, yeah. And what was that guy's name? He's Thor's assistant in all the Marvel movies.

10:44
What is that guy's name that's going to drive me crazy? Oh. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I know exactly. And he's got a Scarsgard. Scarsgard, yeah. He's got sons that are in the business. So when I was trying out for the role, I said, if it's OK with you, I want to try this guy out as an Australian. They said, oh, we've seen that. Give it a shot. Next thing you know, I was cast. And it's amazing because two of the strongest male, actually, two of the three strongest male musical performers in Augusta,

11:14
The one that got left out of this because he was not in the show was Russell Joel Brown. The other two are Saul Baird and Casey Johnson. This was Saul's first show back since coming back from New York. So he kind of blew everybody away. He played headbanger Harry in the show and of course Casey was Sam. So the three of us were the dads and it was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had in my life. The lady lover to death, Joy Ledford, who played my love interest, Rosie in the show,

11:44
Yeah, and I think the I've been told the funniest scene in the show is she and I doing take a chance on me And joy chasing me all around the stage. She wanted an argue for it. I was I was very proud of her She's fantastic lady. Yeah. Yeah, and and what a great show and that's it's so great that you've still got that that heart for performing and that you seem to take to it as a fan of the of the medium as well as Somebody who who wants to be able to give back to the community as well

12:14
A lot of it. I mean, I love the giving back to the community in the sense that I think you get a lot of people involved doing a good thing and you entertain people, which I think is a very underrated public service. Absolutely. Having said that, I'm not a huge vocal person. I don't sing very well. I sing okay, but I don't sing very well. I can sing when I'm playing a wolf. French wolf in one of the story land shows. I can sing like a French wolf. But boy, singing as a regular human being is kind of difficult for me.

12:44
The great thing about Mamma Mia, much like Grease, is that those songs are beaten into our consciousness. And it's one of the few shows, those two shows actually, two of the few, that virtually anyone can see and they'll know most of the music. So many other shows, with the exception of something like Beautiful, the Carole King story, or Jersey Boys. Same situation with those songs. And I just think that you have a very interesting and limited window of opportunity

13:14
like that and I don't know that I've ever had more fun on stage than the closing number of Mamma Mia where the six of us are singing lead vocal together on Waterloo. Yeah. And because I've been singing that song since 1974. Right. And and loving every minute of it. Yeah. And the costume wasn't bad. I mean you know. I laugh because getting into that thing for me especially was a huge pain in the

13:44
and I actually had to have an assistant who just so happened to be Joy Ledford's husband and a great guy. And I would literally go from making out with his wife on stage to running backstage to get naked, to jump into my 1970s Lycra suit. And if it hadn't been for Adam, I would have never gotten into it. So he would, the instant I would run back there and start shooting my clothes off, how was Joy tonight? How was Joy?

14:14
Oh absolutely, beautiful. That's awesome. Yellow lipstick, that's alright, that's alright. Very minty, it was very minty. That's awesome. Hey, and you've done, you did something with Lachat as well, right? I've done several things with Lachat. Lachat Noir. I was part, and I loved your interview with Chris Bailey. I was sitting at the table all those years ago after a rehearsal, a Storyland rehearsal one night.

14:44
Who else was at the table? I'll think of it in a minute. Anyway, several of us sitting at the table and Chris and Doug were talking about their dream, what they wanted to do in life. And Doug wanted to open a black box theater and Chris kind of did too. And the next thing you know, they're drawing it out on a napkin. The guy who's a real estate guy says, absolutely. I got a place downtown that's for sale right now. And they started planning it out. All three of them.

15:14
Hey, you want to get in on this? And I had to make a decision. If I had gone in financially, and I would have loved to have done it, and I was at a point in my life when I kind of could have, I would never be able to mention them on the air. You cannot push something that you've got a financial interest on the air. And I said, you know, I would rather be, I can help you a lot over here telling everybody, go do this new cool thing. Or I can, Carrie Anderson and her wonderful husband,

15:44
I'm going through the whole list of all the Andersons now. But anyway, and I didn't look that up by the way, it came to me. Shame on me for not remembering Carrie. I've got all these beautiful young actresses that have come in my mind and they're starting to push out the older ones. But anyway, I love Carrie, Carrie Scream. Carrie and her husband were the lead, well, two of the leads in the first Storyland show that I did and absolutely loved them to death. But anyway, so Mr. Anderson was the real estate guy and they were planning it all out

16:14
And I just had to kind of sit back at that point and watch them do their thing. What's really interesting about that is, if you know the story very well, the Andersons got out of it pretty quick. And Doug and Chris continued. And now Doug's kind of out of it. I mean, I think he still owns the building. But it's Chris's baby. And wow, what fun and amazing job he has done with that theater. It is such a joy, such a wonderful gift that Chris, and in the background, Doug.

16:44
the Andersons have brought to the community. And so many others have been involved, whether it's Roy Lewis and Richard Justus back in the day helping them all out. It's just been a great community effort. Absolutely. Kind of feel like that's Augusta's version of the barn raising. Yeah. Because everybody's had a hand in it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And like you said, the fact that it's there and it's a place that it filled a need that wasn't being filled

17:14
I can't believe I blanked on Justin Anderson's name. That's our best-looking guy. It's amazing, all these good-looking people that allow me to hang out with them every now and then. And it's very humbling. But Justin looks like he just stepped off the cover of GQ magazine. And Carrie looks like she's 20. And me, in the meantime, I look like the guy that dropped him off in the cab. But anyway, great people and love them to death. And I just really am very, very proud

17:44
I got to kind of watch that and I encouraged them. I mean, I didn't do any of the grunt work that they did. God knows. I remember visiting them down there when they were, you know, 95 degrees on a Saturday morning, pulling old plywood and rotten flooring up. Yeah, yeah. I remember that building when it was the Capri Cinema. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it had gone through several iterations, I think. I'm talking about when it was the Capri Cinema, not the place, let's go to the Capri. Yeah, no, no, no. Not that place. No, it was the one. The dirty movie place.

18:14
to get into the movie theater. Do you know that was the theater, and that was the case that settled George's obscenity law? Really? Yeah. Did not know that. The name of the film that was actually cited when they shut it down, and they took it to the Supreme Court of Georgia and opened it back up, was called Her Family's Jewels. And I don't know where she kept her jewels. I don't know if that was a reference to something that she had or something. But I remember that case playing out when I was a kid. Wow.

18:44
That's crazy. But now an amazing theatrical venue. Oh yeah. And they're doing so much more stuff with it now too. I've done I want to say three or four shows down there and I've also with Meredith Anderson a few years ago did several productions of Love Letters down there, which we had a ball with and I'm so proud we were able to raise over $3,000 each show that we did down there.

19:14
He and I were having a conversation about something and he was talking about how tight money was. And this is 10, eight years ago, something like that. And I said, you know, I've been reading about love letters and different people doing it in different places and they do it for charity, media folks, or television stars that are used to working together. Larry Hagman and Barbara Eden did it. Oh, wow. Larry Hagman then did it with the woman that played Sue Ellen, whatever her name is, on Dallas. And I said, I would really like to try this.

19:44
we could do something. And he was a little bit skeptical not that we could do it. He just said, you know, a lot of people try and do fundraisers for us, but it just doesn't make financial sense. And I said, well, what do you mean? If you sell out the theater? He said, oh, yeah, but you know, it's the cost of this and the cost of that, and la, la, la. And I said, no, no, no, no, no. If I do a fundraiser for you, you get every dime for every seat sold in this theater. And if somebody's sitting in the seat, somebody's paid for it. I said, the theater does nothing except open the doors. I said, now, you can work tech for me.

20:14
if you want to, but you're not paying anything. You're not paying the royalties. You're not paying for the makeup that Meredith wears. You're not paying for the props that we use. All of that's gonna be covered. And he couldn't believe it. He had done several very high profile fundraisers there where he had worked his tail off and filled the place up to the rafters and barely made $1,000. Meredith and I did that over three grand, twice, twice. That's awesome. So we were very proud of that.

20:44
Awesome. And so you have a connection, as we start to get back to your careers, I mean, I love you being part of the theater community, but you have a background in television. Was that your first media gig? Did you start radio first, then go to TV? It all goes back to theater. Matt Stovall, who I knew through the Augusta Players, he needed help doing high school football, and we were working on a show,

21:14
He mentioned, he said, what are you doing Friday night? I said, nothing much. He said, why don't you come out and help out and you can see how it all works. And for two years I did that. And I initially started doing just statistics and I would only be on the air during halftime saying, tonight Evans had 400 yards passing and whatever. And then the next year I became a little bit more of an active part or had a more active part in the broadcast.

21:44
I think he and I did that three or four years together. I was his color commentator. And enjoyed the headcount. It was a lot of fun. Traveled all over the state doing it. And back in those days, high school football, we started off with Evans. And it was the year that Evans had their state championship quest end on a very, very controversial and sour note. The quarterback got caught with a radio in his helmet. And they yanked him out of the. The rule at the time was if you get caught with improper equipment, it's a 15-yard penalty

22:14
And that's it. Well, when they caught Evans doing it in a playoff game, they gave him the penalty, 15 yards, and then they had a meeting of the Georgia High School Association and kicked him out of the playoffs. And they were the number one ranked team in the state by far. No one would have touched them. And it would have been a huge state championship. So it was a big story at the time, huge scandal, huge scandal. And we were right in the middle of it. So I started doing radio there when Bob Beckham took over.

22:44
was also playing records DJing part time on the weekends. I was at WMTZ in Martin S. Evans and doing that on the weekends and fill in work and right about 87 WGAC went on the market and George Beasley owned it and he sold it to Bob Beckham. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was kind of an owner financing deal with Bob making the payments to George.

23:14
I went to work in their news department there in 87, early 88. I was just getting married the first time. And I was 23. And full-time news. And it was mainly based on my ability to communicate, which Matt knew about. Matt was the program director. But it was also my just from birth obsession and love of politics and current events.

23:44
to it. My son's kind of like that with basketball. At some point, somebody gives him an opportunity to make money talking about basketball. He could probably do just what I did. It's not work when you grew up knowing about it and learning about it from your parents in every conversation at the dinner table when I was a kid. It had to do with politics. And back in those days, we would have these huge family dinners. And everyone was encouraged to give their opinion. But you better know what you're talking about or you'd have your head served back to you on a platter.

24:14
And you would walk off in shame. And I learned very early on to keep my mouth shut and to listen as much as I possibly could. But when I did have an opinion, I would speak up. And it was like second nature to me almost, getting into it like that. And then, got to bring up your father-in-law, the radio program that my grandfather would always listen to on my dad's side, Daddy Zeb, was Voice of the People. It was hosted by a guy named Bob Young, who

24:44
the Bob Young that was mayor of Augusta and who worked ironically in radio and television. But it was Barry Young, who is your father-in-law. And he hosted that show very successfully for a number of years. And I would listen to it every afternoon with my grandfather. And I was over at his house. And then it got to the point where my mother and father were getting a little concerned about me, because I would turn the radio off of WBBQ when they were listening to music, so I could turn over and listen to Bob do Voice of the People.

25:14
started calling into the show on occasion. I would give opinions on things like the 1976 presidential election between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. And he nicknamed me the WGAC whiz kid. And appreciated hearing from me, I think, once or twice a week. I could tell he'd get a little tired of it. His most radio talk show host would. But I was a novelty to him. And he was nothing but gracious to me every time we talked. It's funny, I never got to meet him until much, much later when I was working at GAC in News. And he came to visit Matt one time.

25:44
best friends. Yeah, yeah. I remember Val talking about just Matt being over at the house and visiting and things like that and their friendship and all like that. Now your wife's mother was... Barry's first wife. Right, right. And I'm trying to remember her name. Oh, Bonnie. Bonnie, Bonnie, that's right. So I think I remember hearing Barry talk, or Barry, Bob, talk about Bonnie on the air and I remember

26:14
he left GAC. He was headhunted out of the area because of Dunbar, Ed Dunbar over at BBQ. He recognized Bob was one of the few people that had ever competed with them for an audience that he wanted. He didn't mind George Fisher competing, because George Fisher was getting the geriatric crowd. It bothered him that young people were listening to Barry, Bob, do Voice of the People. And he helped get him hired out of the market, and he never looked back.

26:44
No one was ever impressed with me that much. There's a funny story, I'll tell you about that in a minute, but it was Augusta's loss, because literally until I went on the air in 1992, no one ever did aggressive talk radio with both knowledge and enthusiasm. You had some with enthusiasm and no knowledge, you had some with knowledge and no enthusiasm. I was the first one since Bob to kind of bring it back to where it needed to be. Yeah, yeah.

27:14
and you're now 30 years on. Holy cow. Having done that. Can I tell you the story real quick? Yeah, go ahead. So a couple of times in my career, for one reason or another, I've considered leaving and going somewhere else and doing something else. Which is often the case with radio. As I've said with other people, it's often the case with radio. What was really interesting is when I started at GAC, I had left Channel 12 where I'd been a reporter, assignment editor, producer, weekend anchor,

27:44
for everybody. If Rick Sykes went on vacation, if Bob Smith went on vacation, Sam Crenshaw, I was the filling guy. So I was making, I remember, I was making $22,000 a year. Yeah. Big money. In 1992. Yeah. And when I left Channel 12, I walked in to GAC making $27,000. Wow. And that was that.

28:14
heard me and decided to lock me up in a better contract and give me like a $2,000, $3,000 raise. I was at $30,000 boom. So I crept along getting incremental raises along the way, but I was still very much middle class. I was still kind of on the lower end of the totem pole. Until one day I got a phone call from an attorney who knew Beasley Broadcasting's

28:44
And he said, I'm so-and-so. I wish I could remember his name. I call it. I'm so-and-so. I have an office in Roswell, Georgia, which is exactly 158 miles from where you're sitting. That means I am outside the 150-mile radius of you having to notify your employer that I've called you. And he knew Beasley Contracts. Yeah. And I said, OK, what's up? And he said, we own the Rush Limbaugh show.

29:14
Premier, I say Premier, well yeah, Premier, I Heart, which at that point owned Limbaugh and distributed it in whatever I Heart was back in those days. What was it? He was either... It wasn't I Heart, it was... Clear Channel or Cumulus? Clear Channel, Clear Channel, Clear Channel, yeah. It was Clear Channel. So he said, our policy is we leave Limbaugh where he is if he's doing well in making us money in the market and he's doing very well for you over at WGAC,

29:44
And by the way, Clear Channel owned WBBQ at the time, unless we can take Limbaugh and put him with something local that's also successful, and guess what? You're it. So would you consider sitting down and talking to us? And I was very impressed. And by the way, I heard later on John Patrick had something to do with this. But I am also loyal. And I wasn't going to sneak around on my boss. I felt like I was cheating on him.

30:14
And so I went to him the very next day and I said, here's the gentleman that called me and he wants to talk to me about coming to work for him somewhere and he indicated they'd be willing to work with me on sitting out on non-compete and all kinds of stuff. And I said, but their plan is to take Limbaugh from this radio station, but only if I'll go with him. And his eyes got real big and he was writing things down, my boss can't done. And the next day I walked in and the vice president

30:44
was sitting in his office, wanting to talk to me. And I said, well, here's the deal. And they turned ghost white. Because you have to understand something. That represented noon until 6 on WGAC, and about 80%, if not 85% of their income, those two shows. And Limbaugh is a great draw, especially back in those days. But it had very limited inventory. So what you were supposed to do with Limbaugh,

31:14
to the station and then kill on the local programming on both sides of it. And man have they killed off my show. Whoa! They killed. And they didn't want to see that go away so they finally swallowed Gulp and made it worth my while to never really ever want to do anything what I'm doing. And that was 2002, something like that. And here we are 20 years later. Because I very easily could have

31:44
and go and sold cars and made what I was making. But they made it worth my while to want to be a radio talk show host for the rest of my life. That's great. I can't wait. But I really, and John later coughed up or admitted that he may have slipped my personal contact information into the right hands up there. But the plan would have been to stick me, not on BBQ probably, but either on another one of their FM stations and go talk radio with it.

32:14
1340 AM, which was being done in markets all over the country. Lower power AMs back in those days were still very lucrative. What's really crazy about that entire conversation, though, and I really have to speak up whenever anyone talks about the genius of WBBQ, because yeah, 104.3, genius, until they started monkeying around in the mid-90s. But the genius behind that station is evident in the success.

32:44
money that they made, but that someone over there wasn't bright enough to see when Rush Limbaugh hit, we got to do something with this massive news department that we've got, which was one of the best in the southeastern United States. Second, probably only WSB really, and maybe WBT in Charlotte, but way better than anything in Columbia, way better than anything in Birmingham, way better than anything in Jacksonville, Florida.

33:14
and they should have scooped somebody up and gone talk radio with one of their stations. Had they done that, they'd have made even more money and still be making money off of it. But that somebody over there wasn't bright enough to see that troubles me greatly. And it was insulting back in the day, now I just laugh at it, but that they would think that was not a format that was worth their while, well, guess again.

33:44
Like I said, that news, you have to understand back in those days, WBBQ had a news department that had, I think, seven full-time people in it. And at our height, at our largest, GAC had three news people. And now we've only got really two dedicated. And one of them came from BBQ, Gail Minow. And the fact that it was mobile news, too. I mean, they were in cars. There was a fleet of cars all across wherever news was happening, reporting live from wherever it was.

34:14
talented music director over there, and Harley Drew, and all those guys, crazy that George Weiss would do a two and a half minute report on a deer being hit on Washington Road. And it's clear the deer flew 45 feet in the air, and lots of antler bits here and there. I mean, and they would, because they were fast moving, rock and roll station. And you could have done that all day long when Newstalk had a ball with it, just like they do at WSB in Atlanta right now. Yeah. Yeah.

34:44
That's crazy. That's crazy. So at 30 years, you're looking for 30 more? What are you? What's next? And when I say what's next, I mean, I don't mean like, are you changing or anything? Well, it's not me. It's the plan. Yeah, it's not me so much. We're about to start a real sincere digital push at Beasley. It's nationwide. It's not just us and Augusta. Because that's really the way that the entire

35:14
doing much like what you're doing right now. And I get that. I had always predicted, I thought, because the bandwidth really is there, that in a fairly short period of time, once satellite radio technology became ubiquitous in almost every household in some way, shape, or form, that we would use that technology to send all of our signals up to the birds, so that way you didn't have any signal problems ever. And that has not materialized quite like I thought

35:44
took its place is digital download and streaming. And the problem is that you still have issues where you've got to be able to get the stream. But people listen to me in Turkey and Jamaica. And I get phone calls and notes from California, New York, Pittsburgh all the time. I have relatives that live far away that get to hear and that type of thing. So that's the future, I think, of talk radio. And no matter what's going on nationally, and there's always something fun to talk

36:14
these days of Trump and Biden and Roe versus Wade and all this and the other. But you let a little old lady get beat up at Augusta Mall. People want to hear about it. You let one of our politicians do something stupid. People want to hear about it. So that's, and you can never go wrong talking about that stuff. And thank God, knock on wood, praise the Lord. I've been doing what I do long enough to where I can sit back and talk about the day that Augusta Mall opened and the day that Regency Mall closed.

36:44
and what was responsible for that. I remember the names of several of the young people that were murdered in the wake of Regent Seamal going south. I remember who the mayor was three mayors ago. I've got most of those guys on speed dial too, so if I need to call them I can. And that knock on wood, that's something that makes me a little bit hard to replace. If I got hit by a truck tomorrow, they better hope my phone went in my pocket, because they could use those numbers.

37:14
At the same time though, 30 years, wow. Wouldn't it be nice to do what my wife is gonna do when she hits her 30 years, she's a school teacher, and say, goodnight everybody, and start getting that mailbox money. Yeah, yeah. Which you and I both know in the broadcast business, ain't no such thing as mailbox money. Your pension is generally the last check you got from your active shift. Yep, absolutely. And it's, as far as like, you still seem to love it.

37:44
You still seem to love what you're doing too As far as like like I said communicating with people getting getting the stories out there Getting the point of view out there getting people talking getting the conversation started And I think that's that's really important to have somebody that Is not just doing it for a job doing it because they're passionate about it. Well again, thank goodness I grew up in a family that taught me. Yeah, and as they taught me, I just watched them Yeah, and I wanted to be like them

38:14
I had a very, very close aunt, Aunt Jewel Childress, who passed away a few years ago, who was one of the founders of the Somerville Neighborhood Association. She ran for office years ago. She was one of the founders of the Richmond County or CSRA Republican Women's Group and was very, very active up until right at the end of her life. My mother was a member of the executive board of the Republican Party in Richmond County and on the Board of Elections.

38:44
have had political involvement as well. And again, it was just a situation where if you were going to be in that household, you better be up on your current events. And if not, there was going to be trouble. Or at the very least, just keep your mouth shut and keep your head down. My brother, who was an incredible musician, learned very early on not to open his mouth about politics. Because that wasn't his thing. And to this day, he can sing like a bird and play every instrument you put in front of him. But trust me, you don't want to hear him talk about politics,

39:14
and he's a little crazy. I love Bentley though. Oh, I love him too. I love your little dog that your wife was holding a minute ago. I'm not going to invite him to sit down and have a political chat. And I've told Bentley 1,000 times, buddy, I don't invite you over to the house to discuss politics. Don't even. And people will tell me, well, you just don't like somebody because you don't agree with him. I say, I love my brother. Wouldn't vote for him for dog catcher.

39:44
love him. Absolutely, 100%. Aside from theater, what's bringing you joy right now, man? Oh, my kids. My 31-year-old daughter, who is a staffer for Congressman Rick Allen, back years ago when he was running for his first successful term, he had run one time before and come up short, she came to me and said, Dad, I think I'm going to go to work

40:14
Rick Allen's campaign. What do you think about that? And I said, I don't like it. She said, I thought you liked Rick. And I said, no, I like Rick fine. Rick's a great candidate, and I will vote for him. But two things, I don't think he's going to win. He was running against an incumbent congressman. And also, you can work your tail off as a campaign staffer and do the very best possible job you can ever do and still lose, and it's not your fault. And you're out of a job. I said, so I don't want you to put yourself

40:44
and she said okay all right well thank you very much I'm gonna do it anyway I said okay the night that he won

40:53
Hard to believe, the night that he won, he beat an incumbent congressman. And he walked over to Christine, and there was one other young lady standing there with him. And I think those were the only two. And I wish I could remember her name. Those are the only two workers that had been with him from the very beginning. During a political campaign, particularly one across a big congressional district, like the 12th, you got 20 people that come and go. But Christine and this other young lady were the only two that stayed with him from the very beginning to the very end.

41:23
and he said, ladies, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? And my daughter had stars in her eyes about going to DC. And then she Googled apartment rent in DC, and it broke her heart. And I remember her being in tears. Dad, how do people do it? And at that point, God knows, she was 23 at the time. And I said, sweetheart, you either have to have 80 roommates or live 85 miles away. And I said, neither one of them is good. And so she decided to stay in Augusta,

41:53
and work at the office here, and she's been there ever since, and she loves what she does. She helps people with problems with the VA and social security. And recently, this is kind of dramatic, when a bunch of Americans were stuck in Afghanistan, she helped get them home. And helped get other people back over here who needed to be. Like, say, an Afghani citizen had a mother over there. They were busting tail trying to get a lot of those folks out of there. And Christine played a role in that. Very proud of her.

42:23
And I have a 13-year-old son, and you say the joy of my life. Tomorrow, right at this time, I will be screaming at his basketball game. I'm having a ball doing all that. I was never a basketball fan ever, really, in my life. And he got an interest in it when he was pretty young. He was much better at it than he was baseball. He did fine in the field, never could figure out how to hit a ball. And God bless him. And when you're a young man and you're not doing everything that you can at the plate to help your team,

42:53
down on yourself pretty quick. And he was so good at basketball, left baseball in the dust, no pun intended. Loves football too, really good at that. And his coach last night was asking me, he said, you must really get into basketball with Bo because he understands things and he's got a great understanding of the game and he's got great strategy and you must be a really good mentor. And I said, no sir, it's NBA 2K, it's video games. And

43:23
He got to learn strategy in those games and he studies it. And he just soaks it all in and sucks it all up. And God bless him, he's doing pretty good. Six feet tall too, 13 years old. Wow. Unbelievable. He's as tall as I am. That's awesome. And I'm 57. You're going the other direction. Yeah, boy. I'm shrinking. You're starting to shrink. That's awesome. That's awesome. And you a big Pittsburgh fan too, of course. Dealers. Since I was a little bitty boy.

43:53
the Steelers when I was seven years old. I can remember the exact moment because it was a momentous occasion for everyone. I was playing football. My buddy, Kerry Foss, over at my grandfather's house. Kerry and his family lived across the street and this was December 1972. We heard uproarious yelling and screaming across the street and I looked up and I can remember to this day my grandmother

44:23
and I could see it swinging like an earthquake. And I'm like, well, you know, what in the world's going on? You could, again, hear just noise. And Carrie and I ran over there and opened the door and my father was sitting on the floor covered in beer. My grandfather was also sitting on the side of where his chair usually is also with a mess. I think he had peanuts or something turned over. And my grandmother just rolling on the floor laughing.

44:53
There was a broken lamp, there was a mess, and Dad was laughing, Daddy Zed was laughing, and they just were pointing at the TV. They had seen the immaculate reception happen in real life, and they were pulling for the Steelers. And I didn't understand anything except that they had just destroyed the living room, and they were drenched in beer, and my grandmother, who was the straightest arrow in the world, was dying laughing. So I decided at that point, I've got to get in on this. I've got to figure out how to have this much fun. And sadly, they lost the next week, but I couldn't wait until the next year, and I've been following them ever since.

45:23
very fortunate, very blessed. I've gotten to know several key members of the organization through the years, and I've had some wonderful experiences. It's my mission in life to see them play in every stadium in the country. And I've made it all of them, but four. Still got four on the list. And I've also seen them play in strange places like London and Toronto and Memphis, Tennessee, and took my son and my wife to the Pro Bowl a few years ago, so we got to see Steelers play in Orlando. So that's kind of our,

45:53
Everybody's got a bucket list. Mine is seeing the Steelers playing every NFL city. And I'm really, so we're pretty close to it. My son, I didn't see my first Steelers game until I was 18. My son has, I think, been to 12 stadiums and he's just turned 13. My daughter's been to more than that. And of course, she's 31. So it's kind of a family deal.

46:19
All right, Austin, this is the second segment of the show. We talked a little bit more about mental health. Dive a little bit deeper into that. I'm a firm believer that there's no one that escapes a down day, a blue day, a day you just don't feel like getting out of bed, whether you call it depression, anxiety, or whatever. And I think being able to address that, it allows folks to understand that they are not alone in that, and especially working in an industry like radio where there's so much turmoil and stuff like that.

46:49
It can get overwhelming, but for you, how do you keep the darkness at bay? I don't know that you do. I think you channel it. If you're smart, you figured out a way to do that. When I was listening to your interview with John Patrick a few weeks back, one thing he didn't mention that I was thinking as I heard him is he and I, anyone in this business,

47:19
having to perform five days a week, no matter what mood you're in. And nobody wants to hear you open a mic and say, oh, 48 degrees today, and I don't know what's going on. You know, what do you think? And you can do that when you're a librarian. You can do that when you're working on widgets on an assembly line, but you can't do that when you're on radio. And John's always done a really good job of keeping whatever's going on in his life out of his presentation. And I try it too.

47:49
in that I've got a heck of a lot more stream of consciousness going on than John does. John's a very structured broadcaster for the most part. He's got five minutes to do news here and we get to weather report there and sports and the like. Me, I open up the mic at three and it's me from three until six, callers included. But I just decided a long time ago that you got a job to do. And if you can put whatever's bothering you in the background for a little bit,

48:19
do a better job, it helps you understand that whatever you bury didn't gonna kill you. Because it didn't kill you those three hours you were on the air. Now I'm fixing to say something that I hope some members of my family don't mind me admitting. Depression runs in my family pretty strong. I've lost three members of my family. I'm talking about not distant aunts and uncles, I'm talking about people that I knew very well and that were major parts of my life

48:49
one just a couple years ago. And I would have never in a million years thought my aunt, well just lost recently, would have ever done that. It was something that was so completely and totally uncharacteristic of her in her usual persona. Her husband admitted that there had been times where she had really been troubled about certain things and also she was dealing with some chronic pain

49:19
was always positive upbeat. I don't know that a single one of her coworkers ever knew anything about it. Her daughters knew that there was some issue there, but they didn't think it was a permanent disability. They just thought it was, hey, mom's gotta deal with her stuff and see you tomorrow. So I'm conscious of it in that I see what the loss of those individuals has done to their immediate family. And I tell you what, if you've ever had to talk to somebody

49:49
husband, daughter.

49:53
their own life. As much as I love the three people in question, it's an incredibly selfish thing to do. And I don't blame them necessarily because their pain blinded them so much to what they did. But I think if they had a clue in the world how much their absence hurt and affected the people that they love the most, they would have never in a million years done what they did. As I've said,

50:23
to a temporary problem. And I lost one cousin at 23 and another in her early 40s and then my aunt was in her early 60s when she died. And it just really, it's a loss that you never get past. I deal with it from the perspective of

50:47
to some degree mind over matter, but there's so many people out there that have real problems. A cancer diagnosis in a child is a real problem. Nuclear war is a real problem. Me not being able to shake the blues ain't on the list. And I just always try and keep that in mind. At the same time, I also realize that the individuals that I lost were also very intelligent and warm people.

51:17
by their darkness, they couldn't see the light. And so, have to be mindful of that, and I'm very, very thankful, not that I lost those people in that way, but that their example has taught me how precious life is. You're exactly right, being in that close proximity to something like that happening to you. It changes your perspective on it. And it's a terrible way for that perspective to change in yourself, you know, to have to go through that loss, or see that loss,

51:47
that damage to families in a way like that, but to be able to take that and to realize, like you said, the stuff that you're going through, maybe not that bad, and to be able to process that. And to be able to, again, speak to that as you have, because I think even what you're saying now can bring light to others, to know that

52:17
that they're not alone, that there are people that are going to care if they're not here anymore. Most definitely, yeah. That they will not just be missed, but there's damage that's done, that they never would have intentionally done otherwise. And being able to...

52:45
let whoever know that, that if you're there, there, if they need to seek help, that there is somebody that they can talk to, that the, you know, whether it be the 9-8-8 phone number, you know, so instead of 9-1-1, there's 9-8-8, and it gets you connected to the suicide prevention line or mental health line. So if you need someone to talk to, all you have to do is dial 9-8-8, but that there is somebody there that does care

53:15
Because I definitely think that those, for me personally, those overwhelming times of when I felt so alone and I just needed someone to talk to, but maybe there was no one to talk to. Sometimes as a man, you have a hard time opening up to your spouse. Well, yeah. In the case of the two younger people that I lost, one had dealt with profound depression throughout most of his teen years. And he was 22 when he died.

53:45
The other was a beautiful and talented, incredibly gifted teacher who lived a completely normal life as far as her own mental health went until she hit her late 30s and started developing a real issue with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia a little bit thrown in. And she self-medicated through alcohol and she went to the best doctors.

54:15
and did everything in their power. And she didn't consciously kill herself in that she reached a point where she said, okay, today's it, I'm gonna write a note and go. She just engaged in very destructive personal behavior, attempting to self-medicate, and she poisoned herself, not realizing what she was doing. And she tried, it's absolutely heartbreaking to think about to this day that beautiful, she was the light of everyone's life. I spoke at her funeral,

54:45
I made the comment that when her husband found her and married her, he caught lightning in a bottle. Nobody ever thought she'd get married. Nobody ever thought she would settle down. And he was sitting there in the pew, nodding his head yes. And that she came to such a sad end, broke all of our hearts. And, but again, when her fault, she was sick. I'm one of the, I'm a huge proponent of like, um,

55:15
If you cross my mind, I'm going to send you a text because I don't know why you crossed my mind and be like, Hey, how you doing? You crossed my mind. Hope things are cool. You know, just so you know, someone is out there thinking about you at random, whatever. Um, because I think I do think that helps some people because they are, you don't know where they're at, what, what moment they're at in their life. And again, you're saying it was, it was accidental.

55:43
And you don't know if that contact at some point would have paused somebody from reaching for another bottle or whatever. Yeah. You never, you never know. You never know what's going to set somebody off. And in the case of all three of these people, I never knew last conversation I had with any of them was going to be the one. And I learned a very, very painful lesson with the first one. My cousin was 22 and I was 21 at the time and he had an alcohol problem and he

56:13
We knew that he was dealing with depression issues. But when I saw him out and about, I never wanted to be a downer. I never wanted to be the guy to tell him not to drink. And also he was my older cousin. So he was kind of in charge of the relationship, so to speak. I was the follower, he was the leader. And I didn't challenge him because I didn't want him to feel bad. Well, I made the decision the day that I was his pallbearer that I would much rather have somebody that I love mad with me than put on a dark suit

56:43
And I had another member of my family years later that dealt with alcohol abuse, and I was pretty rough on her. Just letting her know certain behavior isn't going to be tolerated, certain things can't be done, and if you want me in your life, and you want my family in your life, you need to at least put the effort in. And I think that kept her around for a long time when she ordinarily probably would not have been. She struggled somewhat, not necessarily with depression, but with

57:13
And finally, again, the tough love got to her. And I wasn't able to, and I wasn't mature enough, it wasn't my position to be that way with my cousin, my male cousin. But if I had not been through that loss with him, I probably would have stepped back from my larger responsibility later in life. So it was a very painful lesson, but a very valuable one.

57:38
Alright Austin, this is the third segment of the show. Time now for the Fast Five. Oh boy. This is the Fast Five. Fast Five. This is as close as I'm ever going to get to spinning the wheel on Price is Right. Exactly. Fast Five is powered by Poddex. It's an app created by my friend Travis Brown. It's created for podcasters, but they're great conversation starters, interview questions. As a matter of fact, they've got the app on the Apple App Store as well as the Android

58:08
As well as a matter of fact, if you go to chewingthefatbr.com slash pod decks and use the promo code chew, you can get 10% off your physical decks. But we're going to use the app today. No wrong answers. You ready? I'm ready. Question number one.

58:24
In your travels, what's the most sentimental souvenir you've brought back with you? Oh my goodness. Sentimental. I took home a jar of water collected at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Ohio River, or excuse me, the Allegheny and the Monongahela River, which formed Ohio, where Three Rivers Stadium used to be. Actually, Hinesville is there now. That was pretty cool. I'm a seashell guy. Okay.

58:54
And when I'm in the Caribbean, I will swim out as far as I can go and find something cool at the bottom of the ocean and pull it out. And I've got my backyard looks like Jacques Cousteau exploded back there. I've got shells. And the last trip that I made to Jamaica with my wife, they had had a hurricane down there a couple of weeks before we were down there. And it had shifted some of the sandbars down there. And so the beach that I'd always gone to and found no shells

59:24
150 pounds of seashells in my suitcase. Oh, wow. And it's funny, they were making faces at the resort saying, I don't know, sometimes customs doesn't like to let all the sea life go and all that. And he said, but here's what you do. Put a little bunch of tags on them. So it looks like you bought them from somebody. Take all you want. Buy all you want. So we did that. Wow. My backyard's pretty cool for sentimental souvenirs. That's awesome. That's awesome. Question number two.

59:54
What was the first car you ever owned? 1971 Opel GT, also known as a baby Vette. It was awesome. It was racing orange, not burnt orange, racing orange. And absolutely loved that car. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Smelled like gasoline. It had some improper ventilation going on in there. Nobody ever smoked in that car, that's for sure. But loved that car. Good looking little thing. Are you a big car person? No, not really.

01:00:24
I didn't know I was going to get that car. My Uncle Freddy was a huge car person, and he was constantly on the look for something. And he saw that car at a very reasonable price and bought it thinking, hey, if Austin wants it fine, if not, I'll just keep it. And I made car payments to him for 11 months. Oh, wow. $100 a month for 11 months. That's awesome. So that was $1,100. Yeah. You ever thought of trying to get another one to have your first car kind of thing? They're very temperamental at this point,

01:00:54
I have a miniature Opal GT on my shelf at home and our dear friend Tim Campbell from the Imperial Theatre Tim, if you're listening, I still know that you have my model Opal GT that I told you I would pay you to put together about 10 years ago And he hasn't gotten to it yet. He's an expert model builder. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, and one of these days he'll finish it Yeah, yeah, he's he's enjoying his honeymoon. Oh, yeah Awesome went to Risa. I think

01:01:24
where he went. Oh. You have to look that up. Okay. R-I-S-A. Okay. Because I thought... Trekopedia. Look it up. Oh, okay. I was gonna say I thought they went to Disney. So question number three.

01:01:39
Which actor made the best Batman? Adam West. There you go. Adam West. But having said that, I really enjoyed Michael Keaton. And I didn't think that I would. I cursed when I first heard he was cast. And I didn't get it. But when I saw the film, I really liked it. By the way, there's an incredible twist that, unfortunately, the Spider-Man movies have stolen. But apparently, this was being done

01:02:09
movie and I didn't know this do you know that flash visits alternate universes mm-hmm and Adam West is in one of them oh wow can you believe that they're actually going to admit that Batman and Robin Burt Ward and Adam West are out there somewhere wow I love that that's awesome that's awesome now were you obviously you're a fan of the TV show I have I have the series on blu-ray and I

01:02:39
in my media room. That's awesome. Yeah. With your disdain for the announcement of Michael Keaton, were you from the, Michael Keaton was a standup comic? Was that your first kind of interest? Yeah, I just, I thought he would be silly and he played the role perfectly. Yeah. I mean, he really impressed me and I was pleasantly surprised. Yeah, I thought he did great. I thought he did great. All right, number four.

01:03:08
You get a movies if someone made a movie about your life, who would play you? Oh my Lord. Uh, I always say this one can be in two parts. Who, who do you think would actually get the job or who, who would you want to have the job? Um, can, can I use old actors that can't do it now, but when he was young, sure. James con. Oh, uh, um, when he was younger, it would have made a great Austin in the movie. Uh, some people would say it's, it's that idiot that runs his mouth all the time. Uh,

01:03:38
He was, he's in all the Leonardo DiCaprio movies. It's his name. Damn, he's constantly losing weight and gaining weight. He was in Super, Superbad and- Oh, oh. Jonah Hill? Jonah Hill, thank you, yes. And I have been that fat, but then again, he's been skinny lately and back and forth and I'm kind of that way too, so. But he definitely has the hair down. What he used to have.

01:04:08
Anyway, that's awesome. And number five.

01:04:14
What was the last book you read? The novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is awesome. Fantastic. Love that movie. Love Tarantino. Last time I was in California, it was for the Steelers Chargers game a few years ago. And went to Musso and Frank, which is heavily featured in that movie, and had the most expensive lunch I've ever had in my life. Love old Hollywood.

01:04:44
that without a shadow of a doubt would have been it. That's, speaking of Leo DiCaprio, I love that scene with him in the trailer. Oh yeah. With his motivational and talking to him. He's beating himself up. Yeah, and I believe that thing was like 95% improv. And I think I saw him talking. There's a lot of that dialogue in the book though. Is it? Yeah, you need to see that.

01:05:14
fleshed out there too that are very interesting. And Quentin Tarantino wrote it himself after he made the movie. So it wasn't, you know. So he was able to type a few. You've seen the movie, haven't you? Yes, yeah. Love that movie, love the vibe of it. Love Quentin Tarantino, period. But I'm especially attracted to anything involving old Hollywood. And I must recommend very quickly the Paramount Plus series that just wrapped up shortly, about a week ago, called The Offer. Have you seen, have you heard about that? Yes, yeah.

01:05:44
incredibly well done. I'm a huge Godfather fan and they nailed that project. And what's crazy about it, there's so many dramatic twists and turns that you're watching, saying, well, they had to make that up or they had to alter the timeline to make this fit. And I went and researched it and I'd be doggone. I mean, there are real gangland murders that resulted because Godfather was being made. And Al Ruddy, who was the producer, who's the focus of the

01:06:14
He's very lucky that neither him or any of his people were taken out by some of the mafia that did not want that movie to get made. Wow. It's a fantastic film, or a fantastic series, 10 parts. Well, here's your six degrees of Kevin Bacon for that. So I was actually in a film with Miles Teller. Really? I was in the Spectacular Now, which was his breakthrough film. I'll have to go look that up. I'm in a deleted scene.

01:06:44
But it's on the DVD or if you do the digital download with the special features. I'm the convenience store clerk, but it's just me and Miles and this kid. The kid was great. His whole storyline got cut from the movie, and he had lines, so I felt bad for the kid, but Miles was great. His performance in Maverick was awesome as well. Yeah. And by the way, have you seen Maverick? No, I've not seen that yet. I've heard a lot of people talk about that. Did you see the original Top Gun?

01:07:14
Okay, how long has it been since you saw it? Probably about 20 years. And you need to re-watch it, because I saw it years ago. We watched it with my son before we went to go see Maverick and I soaked it all back in, but there's a couple of very fun... Like Easter eggs. Yeah, Easter eggs, especially involving the Jennifer Connelly character. So pay attention, watch the first movie, take note, and then watch the second one and you'll say, oh, I know who she is. Awesome. But I really love that movie. That's awesome.

01:07:44
Well, Austin, that's it. That's our Fast Five and that's the show. Thank you so much for being here, man. Oh, it was a pleasure. And I appreciate you doing this. And please, I said this a little bit but I want to reemphasize it. If it were not for your father-in-law, WGAC as we know it, I don't think would exist today. My career would never have been what it was or what it is. And I just, I always owe him. I think that probably 5% every year should be kicked

01:08:14
do it. I will cut that out and send that to him because he'll appreciate that. But he really, and for those of you who don't know, the happy ending to the story is Barry Young, on the air at KFYI in Phoenix, Arizona, became one of the leading talk radio hosts of the southwestern United States and he discovered a lady talking about computers, or excuse me, lecturing about

01:08:44
thing you know he has talked her into doing a regular computer show over 25 years ago and her name is Kim commando so Rob's father-in-law is mr. commando yeah yeah and by the way was he 20 years older than her I don't know I don't know she is gorgeous she was and she was really gorgeous back when they met I think she was like 17 or so no he's older than that but just a wonderful wonderful power couple in the talk radio industry and very proud of what Barry is

01:09:14
done and I love bragging to people that I knew him back in the day. Have you gone out to see Westar the studio? No I have not. Next time if you're ever in Phoenix you need to need to holl them up and check out them because they they were in a small where they just did the audio stuff for the because they do the podcast and the radio shows and all that stuff but now there's a whole television side to it too you got to see it. I've heard Kim talking about it and it's funny we were out there about ten years ago to watch the Steelers play the

01:09:44
and who the head coach of the Cardinals was in visiting with him. His name was Ken Wisenhunt from Augusta, Georgia. I would have, and he had been the offensive coordinator for the Steelers the year before. I probably would have remembered to go look him up, but what an incredible radio legacy he has. I just, I thank him every day. Well, Austin, if people want to keep up with you, obviously you've got the show, but do you do a lot of social media or anything like that? Oh, goodness gracious. Post-confinement online. I have one of the most active

01:10:14
pages in Augusta, the Austin Rhodes Show page on Facebook. I've got 54,000 active followers and probably at least that many that refuse to put their name down as followers that are constantly griping at me and it's fun, it's a blast, it's most of the time it is, sometimes it gets a little hairy, but Austin Rhodes Show page on Facebook and of course I'm on three to six every afternoon, Monday through Friday on WGAC Augusta. Awesome, I'll make sure to put those links in the

01:10:44
at chewingthefatbr.com. One more time, Austin, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. And if you would like to support this podcast, I'd appreciate it if you buy me a coffee at chewingthefatbr.com. But until next time, I look forward to, we have a moment to sit a spell and chew the fat.