Podcasts about Fairfield

As Iowa's COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have been increasing going into Thanksgiving, Governor Kim Reynolds is highlighting that Iowa is in a better position than last year. The two teenagers charged with killing a high school Spanish teacher in Fairfield were back in court asking to be released ahead of trial. Plus, a conversation with IPR's Kate Payne about the runoff mayor's race in Cedar Rapids.

Intro: buzzsaws and clean slates, rage, Where the Wild Things AreLet Me Run This By You: MoneyInterview: We talk to Carole Schweid about Juilliard, Phoebe Brand, John Lehne, Michael Brand, Midnight Cowboy, musical comedy performance, open dance calls, starring in the original cast of A Chorus Line, Bob Fosse, Pat Birch, Martha Graham, Minnie's Boys, Mervyn Nelson, playing Fastrada in the first national tour of Pippin, being a lone wolf in theatre, Lewis J. Stadlen, doing West Side Story at Bucks County Playhouse, Shelly Winters, Mary Hinkson, Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, playing Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof, Peppermint Lounge, Nick Dante, Michael Bennett, Marvin Hamlisch, Public Theater, Gerry Schoenfeld, The Shubert, the wish for a job vs. the real experience of working, Theda Bara & The Frontier Rabbi, Agnes de Mille, Play With Your Food, Staged Reading Magic, Albert Hague.FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):2 (10s):And I'm Gina Pulice.1 (11s):We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later,2 (16s):We're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense1 (20s):If at all we survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? As more space is actually a huge thing.2 (36s):Yeah. I have to apologize for the sound of buzz saws. What is going to be going the whole time I'm talking, doing well, you1 (50s):Took some trees down, right.2 (53s):You know, that's how it started. Yeah. It started with actually, you know, it all was a surprise to me, basically one we've been talking about taking down all the trees in the front of our house. And one day Aaron said, they're coming tomorrow to take down the trees. And I'm like, how much did that cost? Because you know, taking down trees is usually really expensive. And so he says, well, he's going to do everything in the front for whatever. It was $5,000.1 (1m 22s):Yeah. She was pretty good for more than one tree. Cause one tree we had removed was $5,000 at my mom's.2 (1m 28s):Well, and it's not like they have to extract the whole tree. It's just, you know, just chopping it down. Like it's not, I don't know if it's different when they have to take out the, yeah,1 (1m 38s):I think it is when they have to take the stump out the roots and all that.2 (1m 43s):So that was fine. Although I did think to myself, Hmm. We have $5,000 to spend and this is what we're spending it on.1 (1m 54s):I've been there. Oh, I've been there2 (1m 56s):So the morning, but I'm letting it go. And so the morning comes and he tells me to go outside so we can talk about the trees and, and, and I, anyway, we, we designate some trees and they're all in the lower part of the front of our house.1 (2m 10s):Yes. You, and by the way, for people that don't know, like you have a lot of land for, for, for, for not being in the super super country, you have a lot of courage. I mean, you got a lot of trees.2 (2m 21s):Well, yeah, we have an acre and it's a lot of trees and it's a lot of junk trees. What they call junk trees. Because the idea here is once upon a time, when everybody got their heat from wood, you had to have fast growing trees. So it's these skinny trees. Yeah. Anyway, so I thought we were sort of on the same page about what we were going down. This is where I'm getting with this. And I had a couple of meetings yesterday and I was hearing the sound pretty close, but it wasn't until I looked outside that I saw, they took everything out.2 (3m 1s):The, every living thing out in the, in the front, in front of our house, including the only tree I was really attached to was I have a beautiful lilac tree.1 (3m 14s):Okay. Oh shit. And everything out.2 (3m 21s):What's that? Why they1 (3m 22s):Take everything out? Is that the plant? I think,2 (3m 25s):I think what happened was for the first couple of days, the boss was here. And then I think yesterday, the boss was like, you guys just go and finish up. And I don't know that anyway, you know what, I'm just choosing it to be, I'm choosing to look at it like, okay, well we're getting to start over and it can be exactly how we want it to be. So yeah,1 (3m 45s):That is a great attitude because there's nothing you can do you really do about it? Absolutely. Zero. You can do about threes coming out.2 (3m 53s):The only bummer is that it sounds like buzz saws all day at my house and at my neighbor's house, I'm sure they're annoyed with us too. Well,1 (4m 2s):What are you going to put? It is. Okay. So, so, okay. The good, that's the sort of wonky news, but what the good news is, what are you going to put in? Like, is there going to be a whole new,2 (4m 12s):I think it's just going to GRA, I mean, I think it's just going to be grass, which is fine. I mean, my thing was actually, it does a little bit of a metaphor because when we first moved here, we loved how quiet and private and everything is. And part of why everything feels very private at our house is there's trees and bushes blocking our view of anything. I mean, all we can see is trees and bushes when we're laying on the front, which for a while seemed cozy. And then it started to seem like annoying that we could never see. And actually there's kind of a really beautiful view of the mountains behind us. So our mountains Hills.1 (4m 51s):Yeah. But I mean, small mountains, like small2 (4m 53s):Mountains. Yeah. So I realized that it does coincide with our psychological spelunking and trying to just be like more open about everything. Like totally. You know what I mean? Like this is just be open to people seeing our house. This is open to seeing out and let's have, and actually my kids were kind of like, oh, but it's just also open and we don't have any privacy. And I'm like, yeah, well you have your room and bathroom. I mean, there's, there's places to go if you don't want people to, to see you, but let's just be open.1 (5m 31s):There's like a whole, yeah. It's a great metaphor for being visible. Like I am all about lately. I have found a lot of comfort and refuge in the truth of the matter, even if it's not pretty, even if I don't actually like it. So like getting the facts of the matter and also sharing the, of the matter without a judgment. So I appreciate this, like wanting to be seen and then letting go of what people make of that, whether your house is this way or that way, or the neighbors think this or that, I'm also the, I I'm all about it.1 (6m 15s):I'm like, you know, this is, there's something about transparency. That's very comforting for me. It's also scary because people don't like it when they can see, or they can say whatever they want, but the hiding, I think I'm pretty convinced hiding from myself and from others leads to trouble.2 (6m 37s):It leads to trouble. And any time you're having to kind of keep track of what you're, you know, being open about and what you're not, and what you've said, you know, it just it's like it's T it's listen. If I only have a certain amount of real estate in my mind, I really don't want to allocate any of it too. Right. Hiding something and trying to remember. Right.1 (7m 1s):And it's interesting, the more that we do this podcast, the more I see that, like, you know what I thought gene, I thought when we're dead, this podcast is going to remain. And then our children's children's children. I mean, I don't have kids, but my nieces and nephew and your children's children's children will have a record of this. And, and I'd rather it be a record of the truth, the truth and transparency, then some show about pretending. So I think it's going to be good for them to be able to look back and be like, for me, it's like the, my crazy aunt, like, what was she doing? And what did she think? And, and, oh my God, it's a record of the times too.1 (7m 43s):Yeah.2 (7m 43s):I think about that kind of a lot. And I think about, of course I say all this and my kids are probably like going to be, have no interests unless the, until they get to a certain age, I mean, I'll put it to you this way. If I could listen to a podcast of my mother in her, you know, in the time that I don't really the time of life, certainly before I was born, but in my life where I still didn't see her as a person until, you know, I'd love to just things like what her voice sounded like then, and that kind of thing. I mean, it's interesting.1 (8m 16s):I have nothing of my mom, like we have a very few, it was interesting because we didn't, you know, we, there was not a lot of video of my mother and today's actually the 10th anniversary of her passing.2 (8m 28s):Oh, wow. Wow. That's hard.1 (8m 31s):It is hard. You know, it is hard. And I'm working through, I started therapy with a new therapist, like a regular LCSW lady. Who's not because my last guy was an Orthodox Jewish man who wanted me to have children. Like it was a whole new, I just got involved in all the Shannon Diego's of like weirdness. I attracted that weirdest and whatever. So this lady is like a legit, you know, therapist. And they only bummer is, and I totally understand she's on zoom, but like, I I'm so sick of like, I would love to be in a room with a therapist, but I get it. She's in, she's an older lady, which is also great. I was so sick of having like 28 year old therapists.1 (9m 13s):Yeah,2 (9m 13s):Yeah, yeah. For sure.1 (9m 16s):I don't even seem right. Unless clients are like, you know, fit seven to 17. So anyway, so, but all this to say about my mom, I was thinking about it and I think what's harder than right. My mom's death right now is that there's I just, you know, and this is something I wanted to bring up with you is just like, I have a lot of rage that's coming up lately about my childhood and we weren't allowed to feel rage. And my mom was the only one allowed to feel rage. And so this rage mixed with perimenopause slash menopause. I mean, like I still get a period, but like, it's, it's a matter of time before that's over.1 (9m 58s):So, but the rage, so I guess, right. I get, you know, people like to talk about rage as some or anger as something we need to process and we need to do this and that, but the truth of the matter is since we're being transparent, like rage can be really scary. Like sometimes the rage, I feel, it's not like I'm going to do anything. Why wonky? I hope, but it's more like a, I don't know what to do with it. That is my, and I was talking in therapy about that. Like, I'm not actually sure. Practically when the feelings come up, what to do with rage. And I feel like it speaks to in our culture of like, we're all about now, this sort of like, we talk about this fake positivity and shit like that.1 (10m 41s):And also like embracing all your feelings, but there's not really practical things that we learn what to do when you feel like you're going to take your laptop and literally take it and throw it across the room and then go to jail. Like you, you. So I have to like look up things on the internet with literally like what to do with my rage.2 (11m 1s):I think that's why that's part of my attraction to reality. Television shows is a, is a performance of rage. That's that I wouldn't do just because I don't think I could tolerate the consequences. I mean, an upwards interpretation is, oh, it's not my value, but it's really just like, I don't think I can manage the content of the consequences. I'm totally at having all these blown up1 (11m 30s):And people mad at me and legal consequences. I can't,2 (11m 35s):It's something very gratifying about watching people just give in to all of their rage impulses and it's yeah. I, it it's, it may be particularly true for women, but I think it's really just true for everybody that there's very few rage outlets, although I guess actually maybe sports. Well, when it turns, when it turns sideways, then that's also not acceptable.1 (12m 3s):Yeah. I mean, and maybe that's why I love all this true crime is like, these people act out their rage, but like lately to be honest, the true crime hasn't been doing it for me. It's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. It's sort of like, well, I've watched so much of it that like now I'm watching stuff in different languages, true crime. And I'll start again. No, no, just stories. I haven't all been the only stories that I haven't heard really, really are the ones from other countries now. So I'm watching like, like true crime in new, in Delhi.2 (12m 42s):Do you need your fix? I actually was listening to some podcasts that I listened to. There's always an ad and it's exactly about this. It's like, we love true crime, but we've heard every story we know about every grisly murder, you know, detail. And it was touting itself as a podcast of, for next time I listened to it. I'll note the name of it so I can share it with you. You know, about this crimes. You haven't heard about1 (13m 9s):T the thing is a lot of them now, because I'm becoming more of a kind of sewer. Like a lot of it is just shittily made. So like the, the they're subtitled and dubbed in India, like India. So you've got like the, the they're speaking another language and then they're and if they don't match, so then I'm like, well, who's right. Like, is it the dubbing that's right. Or the subtitles that are right. And, and actually the words matter because I'm a writer. So it was like one anyway, it's poorly done is what I'm saying in my mind. And so it sort of scraped scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's like deli 9 1 1. I swear to God. That's what it, and, and it's, and also it's, it's horrifying because the, you know, the legal systems everywhere fucked, but India has quite a system.2 (13m 57s):I think that to the rage, like, tell me more about what comes up for you with rage and where you,1 (14m 6s):Yeah. Okay. So some of it is physiological, like where I feel literally like, and I think this is what my doctor's talking about. The menopause symptoms. I literally feel like a gnashing, my teeth. Like, I feel a tenseness in my jaw. Like, that's literally that. And she's like, that could also be your heart medication. So talk to your heart doctor. I mean, we're checking out all the things, but like, but it's tension. That's what it really feels like in my body is like tight tension where I feel earth like that. If I had to put a sound effect to it, it's like, ah, so I, I feel that is the first symptom of my rage. And then I feel like, and, and I say out loud, sometimes I hate my life.1 (14m 54s):That's what I say. And that is something I have never allowed myself to say before. Like I, I think unconsciously, I always told myself, like, you just, you have to be grateful and you know, those are the messages we receive, but sometimes life just fucking sucks. And sometimes my life, I just, I just can't stand. And, and in moments, you know, I never loved myself. So it's mostly a physical symptom followed by this is intolerable, what someone is doing. Sometimes my dog or my husband, but even, even if the coworking space, you know, like the lady was talking too loud and I was like, oh my God, this is intolerable.1 (15m 34s):She has to shut up. So agitation, that's what it is. And, and then it passes when I, if I, if I can say, oh my gosh, I am so fricking in Rouge right now. Then it passes.2 (15m 52s):Yeah. Well, it, it kind of sounds like from, from you and probably for most people, the only real option is to turn it in on yourself, you know, like you're not going to put it elsewhere. So you've, you know, you have, which is, so I guess maybe it's okay if you turn it on yourself, if you're doing, if you're working, if you're doing it with acceptance, which is the thing I'm gathering from you, as opposed to stewing and festering. And1 (16m 21s):I mean, it becomes, it's interesting. Yes, it is. So it's like, so red, hot, and so sudden, almost that the only thing I can do is say, okay, this is actually happening. Like, I can't pretend this isn't happening. I, it I'm like physically clenching my fists. And then I, yeah, there is a level of acceptance. I don't get panicked anymore. Now that I, that something is wrong. I just say, oh, this is rage. I name it. I'm like, I feel enraged and white, hot rage, and then it, and then it, and then I say, that's what this is.1 (17m 3s):I don't know why. I don't know where it's coming from. Right. In this moment. It's not proportionate to the lady, like literally talking on the phone at my coworking space that she's not shouting. So it's not that. And I don't want to miss that. I'm not like I can't fool myself to think that it's really, that lady's problem. That I feel like throwing my laptop at her head. And then, and then it passes. But, but, but it is, it is more and more. And, and I think a lot of it, not a lot of it, but you know, my doctor really does think that it's, it's hormonal. A lot of it just doesn't help the matter. I mean, it's not like, oh, great. It's hormonal. Everything's fine. But it, it does help to make me feel a little less bonkers.2 (17m 45s):Maybe you should have like a, a whole rage. Like what, like a rate. Well, first I was thinking you should have a range outfit. Like, oh, for me, if I, I noticed I pee in the winter anyway, I pick like my meanest boots and my leather jacket. When I'm feeling, you know, maybe say maybe kind of a rage outfit, when did Pierce?1 (18m 9s):No, I, I scratched myself in my sleep. Oh no, it's okay. It happens all the time. I do it in my sleep. It's a thing that it's like a little skin tag that I need to get removed. It's2 (18m 23s):So you could have a rage outfit and then you could have a rage playlist, And then you might even have like rage props. I'm just trying to think about a way that your ma you, you could write because if, if how you process something is artistically creatively, then maybe you needed a creative outlet that's specifically for, for race.1 (18m 48s):Yeah. And you know, the, I, I love that. And now I'm thinking about like, as a kid, we, because we, anger was so off limits to us. I used to violently chew gum. Like I would chew on the gum. That was a way, and my mom did the same thing, even though she also got her rage out, but it was like, you know, when people violently chew on their gum, like that was a way I could get my aggression out. That's so sad that that's like the only way.2 (19m 16s):Well, I mean, you find it wherever you can find me. It's like water looking for whatever that expression is, right? Yeah. Huh. Well, I have to get more in touch with my rage because I I'm told that I seem angry a lot.1 (19m 33s):You do.2 (19m 35s):I, I do get told that, but, but that sucks for me because I feel like I'm not expressing my anger and I'm, but I'm not. So I'm not, and I'm being seen as angry at certain times. So that means I didn't even get the benefit of like letting out the anger that somebody is.1 (19m 56s):Right. You didn't even get to act out the anger. It's like, yeah. So for me, miles tells me that all the time, like, he's like, you seem really in couples therapy. Also, I have to admit yesterday was a big day. We had couples therapy on zoom. Then I had individual therapy. And in between I had all kinds of like, just stuff happening. So, but yeah, I'm told I a miles is like, you seem so angry and he's not wrong. And, and we take it out on the people that we live in a two by four apartment with. So I also feel like this office space is helping with that, but yeah, I dunno, I'm going to have to keep exploring my, my rage and that's what it is.1 (20m 37s):And also it is like, I am the character in where the wild things are that kid, that is what I feel like. And it feels it's like the perfect cause he wants to gnash his teeth and, and he does, and a thrash, thrash, thrashing mash, or the words 2 (21m 6s):Let me run this by you that I wanted to do when we're going to talk to Molly that we didn't get to do. And it was based on made, you know, and just about money and, and wondering like what your relationship is right now with money. And also, but when were you at your lowest with money? What do you remember as being your lowest moment? Sure, sure. With money with money.1 (21m 40s):Okay. I have moments of what first comes to mind was when right. I was at DePaul. So it's an apropos in college and there was obviously a sense. I had a sense of lack, always, even though based on whatever, but it was phone. Somehow my accounts were always negative, right? Like, and I would call the number, the banking number, incessantly to check, and it would always be negative. So I have this panic thoughts about that. Like being a time of like, and that's not the only time that happened like that.1 (22m 23s):Where, what is the feeling? The feeling was that, and this was in college where it started to happen, where I felt like there's never enough. No, one's going to help me. I'm irresponsible with money. Was the message I told myself and I probably was, I was in college, but I can't handle money. And literally that, that panic was also, I mean, it was true. I had no money, but my parents would have backed me, probably helped me out, but I was too scared to ask for help. So that's like, that's when, when you asked that question, that's where I go.1 (23m 4s):But, but that's also a college kind of me. So like in terms of an adult, me, that's a really great, great question. My lowest, I don't know. What about you?2 (23m 22s):Well, I've got a lot of Loma Loehmann's moments with money when I was in high school. The thing was, I lost my wallet all the time.1 (23m 35s):Oh, I remember this. I remember you talking about,2 (23m 38s):Yeah, that'd be still lose stuff all the time. That actually started at a young age with, you know, my mom would, she, my mom was really into jewelry and she would buy me destroyed. And there's nothing wrong with the fact that she brought me jewelry, but I lost it. You know, she buy me nice gold jewelry1 (23m 59s):Because she likes nice things. That's right. Yeah.2 (24m 4s):In college it was pretty bad. And the first time it was pretty bad. I had to move back in with my mom because I couldn't afford rent. And then the second time I just, I re I really, if I had more bravery, I probably would have signed up to be one of those girls in the back of the Chicago reader. Like, I, I, I just figured what ha how literally, how else? Because I had a job, but I only worked however much I could work given the fact that we were in rehearsals and like busy all day, so I never could make enough money. And then I just, I think I always have had a dysfunctional relationship with money.1 (24m 51s):Wait a minute, but I have to interrupt. Why, why didn't our parents fucking help us? Okay. Look, I know I sound like a spoiled asshole brat, but like, when I think of the anxiety that we were going through and I know your mom did, so I'm not going to talk shit about your mom or anything, but I'm just saying like, why did we feel so alone in this when we were so young, this is not right.2 (25m 11s):Yeah. Well, my mom did help me out as much as she possibly could, but I think part of it too, my dad certainly didn't think it was that. I mean, when my mom was 18 and my dad was 19, they bought a house and had a baby. So I think part of it is, has been like, what's the matter with you? Cause I didn't go to college, you know, that's the other thing. So, so then when I, then I had a period for like 10 years where I always had three jobs, me two, what1 (25m 46s):Did you have enough then? I mean like, could you make rapid enough?2 (25m 49s):I had enough then yeah, I had enough then. But then when Aaron decided he wants to go to medical school, it was really on me to, to bring in the income. I mean, his parents always gave him money. They helped, it was a lot more. I mean, and actually it's why he became a therapist because I thought, well, we're going to be living with no income because he's going to be a student. Right. So I better giddy up and get a job. So the whole time I was in social work school, I was bartending. I remember that. And then I went quickly into private practice so that I could make money.2 (26m 29s):And it turned out to be, it turned out to backfire on me. Tell1 (26m 35s):Me, tell me, tell me more.2 (26m 37s):It backfired in two ways. Number one, I was, I shouldn't have been operating a private practice without my LCSW. I had my MSW and I was working at the time in a psych hospital. And all of the psychiatrist said, you should start your private practice. You should start your private practice. And I remember saying at the beginning, I don't know if I'm allowed to oh yes, yes. You definitely can. I know tons of MSWs into plenty of people and it's true. I don't know if it's still true now in New York, but at that time you could walk around and see plenty of nameplates for offices where somebody in private practice and that just have an MSW.2 (27m 18s):They just had to have a supervisor1 (27m 19s):Or something.2 (27m 22s):I don't know. Okay. I dunno. Right. So that ended up coming to haunt me when a disgruntled patient. And they're all disgruntled in some way, a family who actually had been swindled by a con artist, like they, they were a blue blood, rich ass family and they got swindled by a con artist. And so they were talking about rage. They had a lot of rage about that. When this guy who was paying for his daughter's treatment, didn't think it was going where, you know, he wanted it to right.2 (28m 4s):He started pushing back about the fee and then he was submitting to his insurance company and they were not reimbursing because I didn't have the LCSW. So then he reported me to the New York state office of professional discipline or1 (28m 21s):Whatever yeah.2 (28m 21s):Regulation or whatever. Yeah. And I ha I had to go through a whole thing. I had to have a lawyer and I had to go, yeah, yeah. It was a nightmare. It was a complete and total nightmare. And I, and I said nothing, but like, yeah, I did that. I did do that. And I did it because I needed to make the money. I mean, in some ways I don't regret it because I did it worked for the time that it worked. And then by the time it stopped working, I was ready to leave private practice anyway. Oh my God. Yeah. But then it also backfired because we were taking in this money, which we desperately needed living in New York city with two kids.2 (29m 3s):And, and we were, we were spending it all and not hold withholding any for taxes. So then that started, that started, that started almost 10 year saga of just, I mean, I, it's embarrassing to even say how much money we've paid in just in fees, compounded fees. Nope. I'm sure. In the last 10 years we've given the government a million dollars.1 (29m 29s):That sounds, that sounds about right. And you know, I think the thing with money too, is the amount of forgiveness I've need to muster up for the financial decisions that I have made. So one of them that I'm super embarrassed about is that, and I, and I hear you when it's like, yeah, I, it, it's embarrassing. I, I, when I did my solo show, I inherited the year that my mom died. My great aunt also died, who I very barely knew. And I inherited like, like a lot of money. Well, to me, a lot, like 50 grand from her, and I spent 15,000 on a publicist for my solo show that did nothing.1 (30m 14s):So I was swindled. Oh,2 (30m 17s):I'm so sorry to hear that. That really did nothing.1 (30m 22s):I could have done it all on my own. I could have done it all on my own, on drugs, in a coma. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, like, come on. So I have done made some questionable decisions. I did the best we did the best we could with, with the information that we all had at the time. I would never make that decision. I wouldn't, I will never make that mistake again. So yeah. Money is very, very, obviously this is so like kind of obvious to say, but it is, it is. So it is a way in which we really, really use it to either prize or shame ourselves. Right. And, and, and w I do it either way, like I do it.1 (31m 2s):Oh, I'm so fancy. I inherited this dough. And then I also do it. It's that thing that they talk about in program, which is like, you're the worm, but you're the best worm for the festival, special worms. And like, you're not a worker among workers. I'm just like the best idiot out there. It's like,2 (31m 18s):Dude. Yeah. And you're making me realize that money might be the only very quantifiable way of understanding your psychology list. The money is like, understanding your psychology through math. It's going okay. If you're a person like me who gets offered a credit card at age 20 totally signs up and, and immediately maxes it out at whatever, to get 27% interest rate. So whatever little thousand dollars of clothes I got, I probably paid $10 for it. And for the longest time. So, so that's me being afraid of the truth of my financial situation, being unwilling to sacrifice, having, you know, whatever, cute clothes being about the immediate gratification of it all and not thinking longterm.2 (32m 15s):Yeah.1 (32m 16s):Okay. Well, not asking for help either. Like, like, I don't know who I'd asked, but someone had to know more than me. I didn't ask my parents. They didn't really know what was happening at, or that just was their generation of like, not teaching us about money. It was sort of like, good luck. Get it together. We got it together. You get it together. Okay. Fine. But like unwillingness and fear to ask, to be taught something about money. Like, I didn't know, Jack shit about credit or interest Jack shit.2 (32m 46s):Yeah. And I recently realized that I'm basically redoing that with my kids, because we supposedly have this allowance. Only one of my kids ever remembers to ask for it because you know, only one of my kids is very, you know, very interested in money, but like, in a way I can understand why the others don't because it's like, well, anytime they want something, I pay for it. I never say sometimes I'll say recently, I've gotten better about saying, if we're going to go back to school shopping I'll especially if the oldest one, I'll say, this is your budget. If you, if you spend it all on one pair of sneakers, then I hope you're okay with your sweat pants that don't fit and wear them everyday for the rest of the school year.2 (33m 31s):Right. But it's, we've, we've just been extremely inconsistent in tying, like, for example, chores to your allowance,1 (33m 42s):It's fucking miserable and hard. And I have trouble doing that for myself. I wouldn't be able to do that for my children. If I had children, I can't not give the dog people food. What are you talking about? How am I going to bring it? Doesn't shock me. We didn't learn the skills and I'm not blaming. I mean, I'm blaming, of course my parents, but I'm also just saying, it's just the facts. If we're going to be that in the truth, like, I didn't learn, I didn't educate myself and nobody educated me. So I'm really learning through trial and error. Mostly error, how to be okay with money. And it is you're right. Like finances, romance, and finance teach us the most about our psychology.2 (34m 24s):Yeah. Yeah. Romance finance. I love that. 1 (34m 28s):I think that my boss at Lutheran social services to say all the time, finance and romance, romance, and finance, that's what all these addictions are about is that's how you see them. I'm like, she's right. I mean, she was, I liked her. She was bonkers, but I liked her. She said some good. She, she also is famous for saying, and she didn't say it, but she would always quote, the, no one gets out of here alive. You know, none of us getting out of here life, we might as well start2 (34m 54s):. Well, today on the podcast, we were talking to Carol Schweid and original cast member of the original production of a chorus line on Broadway. She's got great stories to tell she's a fascinating person. And I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation with Carol Schweid. Exactly. Carol shrine. Congratulations. You survived theater school. I did. You did.2 (35m 34s):And where did you go to theater school. Okay. First of all,3 (35m 38s):Let me just take my coffee, my extra coffee off of the stove and put it on my table. Cause it's gonna burn because we don't want that.4 (35m 51s):Okay. You're I am looking for a cop. If you have one, you know, this is ridiculous.3 (36m 2s):Hi there. Hi. This is a riot that you talk about surviving theater school. I think it's great. Okay. So this is working, right? You can hear me. Yeah, no, totally. A hundred percent. So this is my, I started college at Boston university. I was an acting major, which I loved. I really did, but I, what I loved more than anything was I loved the history of the theater. We had a great professor who told the tales of the gladiators and the, you know, the gladiators on the island and the fighting, and then the island, the survivors, and then the island would slowly sink into the water.3 (36m 45s):What is this? What did I miss? It was the early history of the theater. It was starting on the church steps. It was, you know, the second, whatever all of that history was, I found it really interesting. I also loved the station shop crew stuff. I liked learning about lighting. I was terrible at it. I, you know, I would fall off ladder, but I, I, I enjoyed the backstage stuff as much as I enjoy. I just, I liked it. I, we did the rose tattoo and my, and my first job was to take care of the goat. I was on the prop crew.3 (37m 28s):I took care of the goat. Was it a stuffed goat? No, it was a real goat. Wow. What can I tell you? The rose tattoo. There's a goat in the play. I didn't realize you could have livestock and colleges, college, whatever it was. I look like I have jaundice with is that something's wrong with the light jump I sent you stop your, where is the microphone part of your, do you want me to hold it up better? Because when you move, it hits your shirt and it makes like a scratching, right? That's right. I'll do it this way. I won't move around. When you look tan, you look, you don't like jaundice at all. Okay. Well then that's all right. Good. Thanks. Were the goat handlers.3 (38m 8s):Good to talk to you. I mean, that was, and I didn't mind, I didn't mind being an usher. All of those things, you know, I remember somebody sitting us down and saying, you're you are the first person. The audience we'll meet tonight as an usher. I took all of the stuff I did, but the acting business was very confusing to me. I didn't quite know. I had done a lot of theater and dancing and been in the shows and stuff, but I really, I was a little more of a dancer than an actor. I'd taken class in the city. I'd followed some cute guy from summer camp to his acting class. But half the time, I honestly didn't understand a word.3 (38m 48s):Anybody said, I just, nobody does. I really didn't get it so much at the time I loved it, but I didn't always get it. And for some reason, and I have no idea where this, why this happened. I had a boyfriend in summer stock whose mother worked at Barnard and her best friend was a woman named Martha Hill. Martha Hill ran the dance department at a school called Julliard. Nope. I had no idea. Cool. Just a little, nothing school. This is back in the day. It's a long time ago. It was just a plain old school. It wasn't like a school, you know, where you bow down. And I really was a very good dancer and always loved dancing.3 (39m 33s):You know, I've been dancing since I'm like a kid, a little five or six or whatever. So I was a little disenchanted with my successes at Boston U even though I had friends, I was having a great time. I mean, Boston in the late sixties was amazingly fun, but I felt like I wasn't getting it. I mean, it wasn't a school that was cutting people. Thank God, because that would have been torture. I don't know how anybody survives that, but I audition for this dance department in this school called Juilliard and got in and then told my parents that I was going to change colleges. I remember making up a dance in the basement of my dorm in Boston.3 (40m 17s):Cause you had a sort of take class and then you had to show something that you should have made up. And somebody else from college was leaving school to come to New York to be a singer. So we decided we were going to be roommates. And then we had a summer stock. Somebody at BU started some summer theaters. So I had a job or two, I think I had some friends from there. So I ended up moving, changing colleges and going to Juilliard. And I spent three years there. I was a modern dancer major. So we had the Limone company, including Jose Lamone wow teachers and the Graham company.3 (40m 59s):I mean, Martha, Martha Graham did not teach, but her company did as a winter and Helen, I was Helen McGee. One of the, they were maniacs. I mean, they're, they're like gods and goddesses and their whole life is about dance. And I was one of those demonstrators for her eight o'clock beginning class, my third year of school. I mean, I, it was all about technique. We had amazing ballet teachers. We had Fiorella Keane who, I mean, Anthony tutor taught class there and he was Anthony. I mean, so I got a out of being at that school that I have never lost. I mean, I can, I'm making up the answers for high school kids now really.3 (41m 42s):I'm just finishing up a production of grease, which is really kind of boring, but whatever I liked Greece, tell me more. Yeah. It's okay. If you hear it enough, you really get sick of it. Well, that's true. Yeah. I mean high school kids doing high school kids is like, Jesus, God, you just want to slit your throat. The moodiness when it comes to the girls. I mean, I love them. I really love them. I love the guys because puppies, they fall all over each other and they're fabulous, but that's a lie anyway. So I did something that I don't know why I did it and how it worked out. That way I left. I had a very best friend in college that was, you know, and I came to New York and made, made and shared an apartment with this slightly crazy woman.3 (42m 32s):And a year later I got myself a studio apartment on west end avenue and 71st street. And my mom co-signed the lease. And I spent three years dancing, honestly dancing almost every day. I wanted to take sights singing, but they wouldn't let me because I was in the dance department. And I didn't know, you could advocate for that. Sure. I didn't know. You could take classes at Columbia. I mean, who had time anyway, but was it a three-year program? It was a four year program, but I had taken a music class at BU that was like music appreciation one. Yeah. And for whatever reason, they gave me credit for that.3 (43m 14s):So I had a full year credit. Yep. Three years of Juilliard where I really worked my tail off. What's weird about it is that I am, you know, just a plain old Jewish girl from New Jersey, you know, a middle-class Jewish girlfriend. And to, to think that I could have a profession where people don't talk and don't eat, which is what the answers do is a riot to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's an absolute riot because you know, I mean, that should be basically the manual for dancers. Don't talk, don't eat, but I always knew that I was heading to Broadway. I really have always wanted to do that.3 (43m 55s):And I, and, and w was not really ever in question that I would, I somehow assumed if I worked hard and figured it out enough, I would find my way to working on Broadway. And I, and I made the right choice in the sense of switching colleges. Because in the seventies, if you look at your list of Broadway shows, all the directors were choreographers. They were all dancers, all of them Fauci, Michael Bennett champion, all of them. So I started working when I got out of school, you know, it was, and I had already done a couple of summers of summer stock and I did a summer Bushkill pencil, you know, these ridiculous, stupid theaters all over, but it was a blast.3 (44m 36s):It was fun. Where, what was your first job out of school? I was still, I was in school and it was the Mount Suttington Playhouse, which was like a tin shell in Connecticut. And I think it was still in college. Cause two guys from school had opened this theater at the skiing place, but it wasn't skiing. Then it was a sh it was like a tin shell. So couldn't really do a show when it was raining very well. And I believe it was stopped the world. I want to get off and I can still remember the Alto harmony to some of the songs. So you okay. Wait, so you don't consider, you didn't consider yourself a, an actor or did you?3 (45m 20s):Well, I did, but I think what happened was I had to audition for something. It'd be you like, they had grad programs and it wasn't that I was unsuccessful there, but somebody came and I didn't get cast. I didn't get hired. And I didn't understand, you know, like they give you all these acting exercises. We do sense memory. Well, I didn't know they were exercises. I didn't, they were they're like plea aids. Right. They're like learning things. I took this all very seriously. I would stand in a room and try to feel it was like that song from chorus line, you know, try to feel the emotion, feel the, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.3 (46m 5s):I did all of that. I didn't really understand the simple, what am I want here? And what's in my way of trying to get it. Yeah. It took me so long to find teachers that I really could understand and make me a better actor. So when did you find them? When did you start to find them? Oh, that's interesting. Well, I found a couple of good teachers in New York. I mean, honestly there was a woman named Mary Tarsa who had been in the group theater and an older lady. I mean, it's a long time ago anyway, you know, but I remember sitting in her class and she would talk about using imagery and th and I started to sort of understand a little bit, which is amazing to me because after I moved to Westport and I met, do you know the name Phoebe brand?3 (46m 58s):Yeah. Phoebe brand was in our theater workshop. Oh, taught a class. She was already up in her eighties and she taught a class, a Shakespeare class on Sunday mornings. And all of a sudden these things that I didn't understand from decades before. Hmm. It sort of pulled it all together. But for me, I went, I was in California after I got married and moved to LA for a couple of years, found a teacher named John LAN and Lee H N E and two years in his class. I started to really understand how to do it. And then when I came back to New York, he sent me to Michael Howard and Michael Howard, Michael Howard was a great teacher for me.3 (47m 44s):He's still a great, I don't know if he's still around if he's teaching or not, but he was a wonderful teacher. And I started to understand how to do it. Was Len the, did he teach the method or what was yes, he was, he was an actor studio teacher. And I started to understand about being present on the stage and being able to deal with people. All of it, it just changed dramatically. I mean, I started to understand what this was about and seeing other good actors and chipping away at it and finding people to rehearse with. And1 (48m 22s):You, you, from what I know, and what I'm gathering is that once you graduated Juilliard, you were cast in New York.3 (48m 30s):Well, you know, I did get my very, my V I I've. I mean, I, I remember going to see midnight cowboy, which was about the same time as I got out of college. And I remember going into a terrible panic of, oh my God. I mean, really scared about all of it. And I, I went, I joined a class that a friend of mine, somebody told me about this class, you know, I always follow somebody to a class. I'm always, I have good friends. And I, somebody says, oh, I love this guy come to class and I'd show up.3 (49m 12s):And this was a musical comedy singing class, kind of where there were writers in the class and actors in the class. And the writers in the class would work on a musical that they didn't have permission for. It wasn't like they were, we were doing this for money or for, for future. So my friend who I became friends with wrote her musical version of barefoot in the park and which has never been done, but I remember I was in it and this guy was in it. And we, it was the kind of a class where it was a very warm, funny group, funny group of wacko theater people. And I would go to open calls and I'd usually go to open dance calls because that was a door for me.3 (49m 59s):And also I used to have to sneak out of Jew, not sneak necessarily, but essentially sneak out to take my singing lessons. And I took singing lessons every, you know, every week for years, for three years, I would, you know, and I, and I was not really, I don't think a very good singer, but I became a good singer. I would sneak out of school and go to an acting class. I don't even know when I started that, but I know that I would find the time to do it and then talk about acting and find a teacher so that when I would audition for a musical and I would get through the dancing. Usually if I got through the first cut, I would make it to the end. I wouldn't always get the job, but if I made it through that first horrible, random cut, you know, where there's 200 people in your dancing across the stage and it's yes, no, yes, no.3 (50m 47s):Is it really?1 (50m 48s):Because I'm not a dancer. So I never had this. I, when my agents are like, oh, there's an open dance call. I'm like, ah, that's you sent the wrong person, the email. So it's really like that, like in, in chorus line where they say, you know,3 (51m 1s):Oh yeah. It's like all that jazz. It's really like that.2 (51m 6s):Wait, I have a question. I want to hear the re the rest of that. But I, I just, I've never asked anybody. What's the biggest difference between the people who got cut immediately. I mean, was it training or were there people that, in other words, were there people who were just walking in off the street with no training trying to audition? Yeah,1 (51m 29s):No, truly an open call.3 (51m 31s):No. And sometimes these were equity calls. Cause I, I, I did get my equity card on a summer. That one summer I worked for a non-union, you know, we were in either Bushkill Pennsylvania or Southern Eaton Connecticut, or I did a couple of those summers. And then the next summer, the choreographer from that show had an equity job. And he hired like three of us from our non-unions summer stock, because we were good enough. And1 (52m 4s):So when you went to these open calls, everyone, there was a bad-ass dancer. No one, there was like,3 (52m 10s):That's not true. That's not true. There were all different levels of dancers, but it was also a look await, you know, it was always, I was always like seven pounds overweight. It was like, the torture is thing of weight does enough to put anybody over the edge1 (52m 26s):That they literally3 (52m 27s):Weigh you, Carol. Oh God. No. Oh, but it's so look, and I will tell you there's one. There was one time when I remember auditioning for above Fossey show and there were a lot of people on the stage and we were whatever we were doing. And then at 1.3 Fossey dancers, it was their turn. And these three gals, okay. Their hair was perfect. Their makeup was fabulous. They had a little necklace, they had a black leotards, you know, cut up high, but not out of control. Good tights, no, no runs, nice shoes, nails done.3 (53m 7s):And they were fantastic. They were clean. They were technically, and we all sort of went, oh fuck.1 (53m 16s):Right.3 (53m 18s):Right. And I have friends who became Fossey dancers. I mean, I worked for Bob, but I have friends who did a lot of shows him. And they had that same experience where they saw other people, the way it should be. And then they would go back a month later and get the job because they knew what it took. It was all about knowing what it takes. But the thing about having studied acting and having slowly studied singing is that in the world of musical theater, I was ahead of the game because there's not that much time. So you have to be willing to spend all of your time.3 (54m 0s):Right.1 (54m 1s):There are some people I'm assuming Carol, that could dance wonderfully, but couldn't do the singing and the acting part. And that's where you were like, that's the triple threat newness of it all is like, you could do3 (54m 12s):Well, I could do them better than a lot of people. And I certainly could sing well, and I had, I could sing a short song and I knew that you sing a short song. I knew that you'd probably do an uptempo, you know? And also I tend to be a little angry when I go into an audition. It's like, why do I fuck? Do I have to audition? I better, duh. So I needed to find things that allowed me to be a little angry so I could be myself. And I could also be a little funny if I could figure out how to do that. So all of these things worked in my favor. And then of course, like everybody else in her, a lot of people, pat Birch, who was a choreographer, she had like a gazillion shows running, including Greece on Broadway. And now over here, I don't know if she did grease, but she did over here.3 (54m 55s):She did. She was very prolific choreographer. She had been a Martha Graham dancer and she had taught a couple of classes at Julliard. And when it came to my auditioning for her, she needed girls who could dance like boys. She didn't need tall leggy, chorus girls. We were doing the show she was working on, was a show called Minnie's boys. And it was a show about the Marx brothers and the last number of the show. We were all the whole chorus was dressed up like different Marx brothers. And she needed girls who could be low to the ground, who can, you could turn who and I was the right person.3 (55m 36s):And I remember being in that class, that wonderful musical theater class with a teacher named Mervin Nelson, who was just a great older guy who kind of worked in the business. I remember I had to go to my callback. I went to my class and the callback was at night. And I remember him walking me to the door, putting his arm around me and saying, go get the job. And if you don't get this one, we'll get you. The next one1 (56m 4s):That makes me want to3 (56m 4s):Cry. Well, it made me feel like part of the family, cause we all want to be part of that theater family. And so I tend to do that when I'm with an actor, who's going to go get a job or go get, you know, you want to feel like it's possible. Yeah. You feel like you can, you deserve it.1 (56m 29s):You said, you mentioned briefly that you worked for Bob3 (56m 32s):Fossey. I did.1 (56m 35s):Oh my gosh. Did you turn into one of those ladies that looked like a bossy dancer too? Like, did you then show up to those auditions? Like, oh3 (56m 43s):No, I don't think I, I couldn't, I didn't, I could not get into a chorus of Bob Fossey, but I did get to play for strata in Pippin in the, in the, in the first national tour. And he, Bob was the, he was the director and I, I knew I was the right person for that job. It was also a funny, kind of lovely circumstances that I was in some off-Broadway an off-Broadway show that had started as an awful off, off of a, that, that Bubba, that moved to an off-Broadway theater. I got some excellent reviews. And I think the day the review came out was the day I had my audition for Bob Fossey.3 (57m 24s):So I, and I played it. I had talked to people who knew him. I talked to, you know, I, I knew that I, I don't know, I just, I, I had done some work and I just, I don't know the right person at the right time, somebody, he needed it. That part required a good dancer. Who could, I don't know how I got the part. I just,1 (57m 57s):I'm kind of getting the impression that we're talking about being a strong dancer.3 (58m 0s):Well, let's strong dancer. And also being able to, being able to talk and sing was really the key. I'm not sure that I certainly, as a young person, I, I didn't do nearly as much comedy as I did when I got a little older, but, and also there were a lot of divisions. You sort of either did musicals or you did straight plays and it was hard to get into an audition even for a straight play. And the truth is I think that a lot of us who thought we were better than we were as you get better, you see when you really, wasn't a very strong actor.1 (58m 43s):Right. But there's something about that. What I'm noticing and what you're talking about is like, there's something about the confidence that you had by maybe thinking that you might've been a little better than you were that actually behooves young actors and performers that, you know, cause when Gina and I talked to these people were like, oh my God, they have a healthy ego, which actually helps them to not give up as where I was like, I'm terrible. I'm giving up at the first hour.3 (59m 9s):Exactly. Right. Right. And, and it, and it goes back and forth. It's like a CSO one day, you feel like, oh yeah, I'm good at this. I can walk it. I get, I'm like, I'm okay with this. And the next day you just to hide under the bed, I think that's sort of the way it goes. I didn't know that people who worked on Broadway even then all had coaches and teachers and support systems and you know, being kind of a little more of a lone Wolf, which I was, and still fight against in a way I come against that a lot, for whatever reasons, you know, whatever it doesn't work, what to be a lone Wolf.3 (59m 54s):Yeah. Yeah. You can't do this alone. You can't do it without a support system. It's just too hard because when I actually had the best opportunity I had, which was being part of a chorus line, it was harder than I thought to just be normal, come up with a good performance every night, you know, it was up and down and loaded and that you lost your voice and had nobody to talk to because you couldn't talk anyway. And we didn't have the internet yet. You know, there was so many, it was so much pressure and so much, and I hadn't really figured out how to create that support system up for myself.3 (1h 0m 42s):And it was harder, harder than it needed to be. Did you ultimately find it with the cast? No. Oh, not really where they mean, oh, none of the cast was fine. It wasn't that anybody was mean it's that I didn't take care of myself and I didn't know how I was supposed to take care of my shirt. How old were you when you were cast in a chorus line? 27? Maybe I was, I was young and, but I wasn't that young. I just, but it wasn't that C w it was a strange situation to, I was, I had already had one Broadway show, so I had done, and then I had gone out of town to bucks county Playhouse.3 (1h 1m 25s):And did west side story Romeo was your first Broadway show. I'm sorry. It was called Minnie's boys. Oh, that was it. That was my, I did. And it was a show about the Marx brothers. Right. And I don't know if you know who Louis. We would probably do Louis Stadol and Louis J Staglin who works with, he works with Nathan Lane a lot. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's like second bun and he's incredibly talented. He played Groucho. Okay. We were all 25 years old. We were kids. We were right out of college. And the weirdest part of all was that the mother was played by Shelley winters. And this was a musical. What a weird you've really. Okay. So then you went onto chorus line.3 (1h 2m 6s):Well then, well then in between that, this is like, you know, then, then I went out of town to bucks county. I love being in bucks county for a year. We did west side story. We did Romeo and Juliet during the week. We do them together, one in the morning, one in the afternoon for high school kids. And then on the weekends, we do one of the, and I was the only person in the cast who liked dancing at 10 o'clock in the morning. You know, I didn't mind doing west side at 10 in the morning. I'd been up at eight, being a demonstrator for Mary Hinkson, teaching people how to do a contraction. So I didn't care. I love working in the daytime. That's what I play with your food is such a nice success. My lunchtime theaters here, I get tired at night.3 (1h 2m 47s):I don't know.2 (1h 2m 49s):Most people do wait. So was the, was the audition process for chorus line?3 (1h 2m 56s):I have a great story. I can tell you what my story is. Okay. So I, I was in, I don't know what I was doing. I had done a lot of off-Broadway work. I had been doing, I had been working a lot. And then of course there were the year where I didn't work. And then I went off to south North Carolina and played Nellie Forbush in south Pacific, in the dinner theater for three months. And I loved that. Actually, I think it was one of those times I had a job and a boyfriend and it was like a relief. It was wonderful to have like a life and then do the show at night. You know, I, I enjoyed that a lot and I didn't, you know, it was a big part and I didn't panic about seeing it.3 (1h 3m 37s):And it was just, I learned a lot from doing a part like that. I was doing Fiddler on the roof at a dinner theater in New Jersey, down the street from where my folks lived. And occasionally my mom would stop by her rehearsal and watch the wedding scene. Honest to God. I'm not kidding. She's like, Carol, you ever gonna get married? Are you ever gonna? Okay. So I'm doing Fiddler on the roof, in New Jersey. And there's a guy in the cast, one of the bottle dancers who were dropping off at night on 55th street, because he's working on this little musical about dancers and he would bring in monologues and he'd asked me to read them at rehearsal because he wanted to hear them out loud.3 (1h 4m 25s):And there was some stuff about this place to ever hear the peppermint lounge back in the studio. Right. It was a disco thing, but it was also a place where there was something. I remember one the couch girls, girls who would just lie on the couches and the guys, I mean really crazy stuff that did not make it into the show, but some interesting stuff. And I was playing the eldest daughter sidle, and it's a terrific part for me. So I was good. Yeah. And Nick knew I was a dancer. Anyway, this little show called the chorus line was in its workshop. Second workshop. They had already done the I, cause I was not a Michael Bennett dancer. I didn't, you know, I, I, I had auditioned for my goal once for the tour of two for the Seesaw.3 (1h 5m 10s):And it was the leading part and I didn't get it. I auditioned, I sang and I read and I read and I sang and I didn't get the part. And I came home and I was like in hysterics for like five days. I just, you know, I, I didn't get the part year and a half later, I'm doing Fiddler on the roof with Nick, Dante in New Jersey. And somebody leaves the second workshop and Nick brings up my name because there's a job all of a sudden to cover, to be in the opening and to cover a couple of parts next, bring up my name. And Michael Bennett says, wait a minute. I know her. I know she's an actress and she's a singer. Can she dance?3 (1h 5m 52s):So I showed up the next morning and I danced for 10 minutes and I got the job. I mean, I think, wow. Yeah. That's a great story.2 (1h 6m 1s):No. So that means you didn't have to participate in3 (1h 6m 4s):Callbacks or nothing. Oh, I started that day. I mean, honestly, it was Fiddler on the roof, you know what, I don't remember whether, how it went. Cause we were already in performance tour or something, you know, I, I it's a long time ago, so I don't really remember, but I know that this particular story is the absolute truth. That's fantastic. That2 (1h 6m 27s):Was it a hit right away3 (1h 6m 29s):Chorus line. Well, it wasn't, we were in previews. I'm no, we weren't even previous the second workshop, which means it was still being figured out. And when I came to the first rehearsal and sat and watched what was going on, I could not believe what I was seeing because the truth of what was happening on stage and the way it was being built was astounding. It was absolutely astounding because something about it was so bizarre. Oh. And also, also Marvin Hamlisch was the rehearsal pianist on Minnie's boys.3 (1h 7m 10s):Wow. So I knew him a little bit, not well, you know, but he was the rehearsal pianist that nobody would listen to a show about the Marx brothers, Marvin would say, wait, this is the Marx brothers. You got to have a naked girl running out of the orchestra pit. You gotta, you gotta, and of course, nobody would listen to him. Wait a minute, just turn this off, stop, stop, turn off. Sorry. So I couldn't get over what I was seeing. And I, I knew from the beginning, of course, I think most of us did that. Something very, very unique was going on and it was always changing. Like Donna McKechnie came in late at the audition, all dressed up in like a fur thing.3 (1h 7m 56s):And it was like, I'm sorry, I'm late. I'm sorry. I'm late. And then Zach says, would you put on dance clothes? And she said, no, no, wait a minute. Anyway, you couldn't help. But know sort of, you just kind of put,2 (1h 8m 8s):I mean, I remember seeing it when I was a kid and not, not being able to relate as an actor, but now that I think back, it just must've felt so gratifying to be seen for all of the, you know, because like we w the Joe Montana episode, we3 (1h 8m 28s):Haven't listened to yet, but I'm looking forward to2 (1h 8m 30s):It here today. But he was saying, I love3 (1h 8m 33s):Him2 (1h 8m 34s):For you. You were saying that when he won the Tony and everybody would say, well, it's like to win the Tony, what's it? Like he said, it's like, you won the lottery, but you been buying tickets for 15 years. You know, that's the part of acting that people now, I think it's a pretty common knowledge that it's really difficult to be an actor, but I don't know how Hmm, how known that was then. And it just, must've been so gratifying for all of those people. I mean, who are living in their real life? The story of that musical. Yeah.3 (1h 9m 9s):I think that that's true. And also, I mean, it really did come out of people's experiences. Those stories are so, so to be part of something like that, and down at the public theater, which of course it was a vol place to be, you know, you, you knew that Meryl Streep was walking down the hallway and you knew that. I mean, talk about confidence. I mean, I don't know if you've read her new book, no book about her. No, it's worth the time I listened to it. Actually, I didn't read it. I listened to, it's quite wonderful because you see a very confident person who's working on creating who she is.1 (1h 9m 47s):Do you feel, I feel like you have a really strong sense of confidence about yourself too. Where did that come from? Would you agree? First of all, that you have, it sounds like you had some comps, some real chutzpah as a youngster and maybe now as well. Where'd that come from3 (1h 10m 5s):Beats me. I have it now because I, I, I, I've had a lot of, a lot of experience. And I, I think that, that, I, I think I know a lot about this, but I don't know that I had it. The trick was to have this kind of confidence when it really matters. Yes. And I think I had it, like if I was in an off-Broadway show, I could say, I don't think that's good enough. Could you restage this blah, blah, blah. Or if I'm in North Carolina, I'm not, I think we need to dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But when it comes down to the real nitty gritty of standing up for yourself, when it really, really matters, boy, that's harder than it looks.3 (1h 10m 51s):You know, even things like, I mean, my character, when I eventually took over the role of Miralis, which I under, you know, I was we've covered all these parts. There were nine of us. We sang in the little booth in the wings. We had microphones and little headsets. And the coolest part of all was Jerry Schoenfeld, who was the chairman of the Schubert organization would bring any visiting dignitary who was visiting the city that he was showing around his theaters. He would bring them into our little booth. And then we would watch the show from stage left in our little booth while we're singing, give me the ball, give him the ball. Cause half the dancers on the stage, cause stop singing because they had a solo coming up.3 (1h 11m 31s):So, you know, singing in a musical is not easy. You know, there's a lot of pressure and you got to hit high notes and you, you know, you just wake up in the middle of the night going torture, torture, and you have to work through that and finally go, fuck it. You know, fuck it. I don't care what I weigh. Fuck it. I don't care if I, if I can't hit the high note, but it, it takes a long time to get there. You know, I see people who do this all the time. I don't know how they live. I don't know how they sleep at night. There's no wonder people like to hire singers who have graduated from programs where they really understand their voice, know how to protect that, which you don't, you know, you have to learn, you have to learn how to really take.3 (1h 12m 24s):That's why, you know, it's wondering about ballet companies now have misuses and we didn't have any of that. You were hanging out there alone. I felt maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I felt. And if I was vulnerable or if I didn't feel well, and I was like, oh, what am I going to do? I can't tell anybo

British General William Tryon launches a series of coastal raids in Connecticut, attacking New Haven, Fairfield, and Norwalk. Blog https://blog.AmRevPodcast.com includes a complete transcript, as well as pictures, and links related to this week's episode. Follow the podcast on Twitter @AmRevPodcast Book Recommendations of the Week: William Tryon and the Course of Empire: A Life in British Imperial Service, by Paul David Nelson  Online Recommendation of the Week: The British Invasion of New Haven, Connecticut, together with some account of their landing and burning the towns of Fairfield and Norwalk, July, 1779: https://archive.org/details/britishinvasiono00towniala Join the Facebook group, American Revolution Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/132651894048271 Join the podcast mail list: https://mailchi.mp/d3445a9cd244/american-revolution-podcast-by-michael-troy ARP T-shirts and other merch: http://tee.pub/lic/AmRevPodcast Support this podcast on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/user?u=15621839 or via PayPal http://paypal.me/AmRevPodcast

11/15/21 - Fairfield First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick And Young Author Madison McMahon by The Lisa Wexler Show

Greg explains how early season college basketball handicapping ca be either your most or least profitable time of the year, recaps Saturday's college basketball games talks to college basketball analytics guru Evan Miyakawa about adjust he made for preparing for this season compared to last, how he's comparing his lines to betting spreads, & how he's gauging home court advantage before Greg picks & analyzes EVERY Sunday college basketball game! Podcast Highlights 2:36-Why early season college basketball handicapping can be volatile 6:07-Recap of Saturday's college basketball results 26:12-Interview with Evan Miyakawa 42:58-Start of picks with Yale vs Seton Hall 44:44-Picks & analysis for E Tennessee St vs Tennessee 46:36-NY Post Pick Florida St vs Florida 49:03-Picks & analysis for S Dakota vs Drake 51:02-Picks & analysis for S Dakota vs Stephen F Austin 52:53-Picks & analysis for Fairfield vs Boston College 54:26-Picks & analysis for W Carolina vs East Carolina 56:34-Picks & analysis for Drexel vs Syracuse 58:11-Picks & analysis for Canisius vs St. Bonaventure 59:47-Picks & analysis for Texas St vs Vanderbilt 1:01:46-Picks & analysis for Idaho St vs Seattle 1:03:21-Picks & analysis for W Kentucky vs South Carolina 1:05:31-Picks & analysis for Minnesota vs Princeton 1:07:20-Start of Extra Game Picks With Lipscomb vs Loyola MD 1:08:44-Picks & analysis for Binghamton vs Sacred Heart 1:10:32-Picks & analysis for UNC Asheville vs Chattanooga 1:12:21-Picks & analysis for Penn vs Bucknell 1:13:52-Picks & analysis for Prairie View vs Oklahoma St 1:15:41-Picks & analysis for Texas A&M CC vs Texas A&M 1:17:35-Picks & analysis for Arkansas PB vs Wyoming 1:19:24-Picks & analysis for C Connecticut St vs Brown 1:21:17-Picks & analysis for Delaware St vs Rider 1:23:03-Picks & analysis for Morgan St vs George Mason Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11/12/21 - Stamford Mayor Elect Caroline Simmons, Fairfield RTM Kathy Braun by The Lisa Wexler Show

Welcome to the latest edition of the Providence Journal's college basketball podcast. The opening week of the season is upon us. Journal sports writer Bill Koch and Morey Hershgordon -- sports director at WPRI and Fox Providence -- were in studio to hit on the first few days of action in the state. Providence (1:30) is off to a 2-0 start but still has room to improve after wins over Fairfield and Sacred Heart. The Friars will be tested Monday in a Gavitt Games encounter with Wisconsin. The University of Rhode Island and Bryant both opened with victories and squared off Friday night. The Rams (18:30) defended well in downing Boston University while the Bulldogs (29:00) fired on offense while dismissing Fisher College.  Brown (38:20) takes a major step up in class at North Carolina on Friday night. The Bears returned after a year-long absence by cruising past Salve Regina on Tuesday. URI's women (48:15) finish a Friday doubleheader in Kingston by hosting Merrimack. We look at the Rams and their quick start with a hammering of Dartmouth on Tuesday. Thanks as always for listening. Much more to come this season. 

This week, we're taking you on a trip to Bourbon County, thanks to resident beer expert Ferdinand and the fine folks of Goose Island. Come to Ohio's biggest Bourbon County party on November 26th right here at Jungle Jim's in Fairfield. Then, we're learning all about the wonderful world of soy products, thanks to Sam from CinSoy foods, right out of Cincinnati. Did you know Ohio had so many soy farms? I didn't! Helpful timecodes: 03:45 - Bourbon County Stouts with Ferdinand, 21:59 - CinSoy Foods and that soy sauce feeling

WELCOME to another edition of the Meat Grinder, your weekly discussion on High School Football in Connecticut. Only three full weeks remain before the end of the season and teams are jockeying for their final playoff positioning before our teams dive into the busy final 10 days before Thanksgiving. Sean and Pete do their best to break down all the latest scenarios across the four different classes. But -- frankly -- the CIAC's new playoff formula modification makes figuring out actual scenarios next-to-impossible. Joining us this week is Fairfield Prep coach Keith Hellstern, whose team grabbed everybody's attention with a thorough 54-0 victory over rival Shelton. It was Prep's biggest margin of victory in 18 years. What does this mean for the Jesuits, who haven't been to a state final since 2013 and haven't won a state title since 1988? Confidence is key. But so is patience. So join us, won't you? RUNDOWN 00:00 -- Opening Montage and Opener and breaking down No. 5 Fairfield Prep's 54-0 rout of No. 6 Shelton. 7:40 -- Breaking down the Class LL picture heading into Week 10, plus the SCC's unbalanced schedule issues helping Hamden, West Haven 19:25 -- Recapping Maloney's 49-18 rout of No. 4 Hall. 21:55 -- Breaking down the Class L playoff picture (Masuk rallies past Shaban, Barlow to stay in the Class L hunt; Wilton must beat Norwalk; What's Hand's hopes look like?) 25:43 -- Wrapping up the Class L playoff picture 27:36 -- Branford beats Avon and the Class M playoff picture. 30:35 -- Breaking down the Class S playoff picture. 34:54 -- The latest GameTimeCT Top 10 Poll 36:42 -- Columnist Jeff Jacobs on sportsmanship. 53:03 -- Interview with Fairfield Prep coach Keith Hellstern 1:16:26 -- Wrapping up

11/09/21 - Elizabeth Warren And Censorship, Jill Vergara Fairfield RTM by The Lisa Wexler Show

Start of picks 3:31-UC San Diego vs Cal 5:35-S Illinois vs Little Rock 8:11-Akron vs Ohio St 10:29-St Peter's vs VCU 12:33-E Michigan vs Indiana 15:23-IUPUI vs Butler 17:41-Citadel vs Pit 20:07-App St vs Iona 22:49-UIC vs Dayton 25:05-FIU vs Georgia 27:27-Belmont.vs Ohio 30:02-Monmouth vs Charlotte 32:39-Kansas vs Michigan St 34:58-Toledo vs Valpo 37:21-Portland vs Arizona St 39:54-Oakland vs WVU 42:31-UT Martin vs Tennessee 45:24-Rider vs Duquesne 47:56-Evansville vs Cincinnati 50:09-Fairfield vs Providence 52:18-Siena vs St. Bonaventure 54:32-Quinnipiac vs Maryland 56:24-Delaware vs Davidson 58:42-Ball St vs GA Southern 1:01:10-Miami OH vs GA Tech 1:03:50-Bowling Green vs W Carolina 1:06:23-Canisius vs Miami 1:08:04-Niagara vs Xavier 1:10:26-Columbia vs Fordham 1:12:53-E Illinois vs Northwestern 1:14:56-Hofstra vs Houston 1:17:46-Elon vs Florida 1:19:55-UNC Wilmington vs IL St 1:22:39-TN Tech vs Memphis 1:24:18-C Michigan vs Missouri 1:26:53-UT Arlington vs OK St 1:29:10-Arkansas vs Mercer 1:31:33-Jacksonville St vs Wichita St 1:33:55-Auburn vs Morehead St 1:35:52-W Illinois vs Nebraska 1:37:45-UMKC v Minnesota 1:40:30-UW Milwakee vs N Dakota 1:43:00-UL Monroe v LSU 1:45:02-Ab Christian v Utah 1:47:13-Pepperdine v Rice 1:49:35-Indiana St v UW Green Bay 1:51:45-Dartmouth vs BC 1:53:58-SEMO v Missouri St 1:58:45-St. Thomas v Chi St 2:01:29-SIUE v Marquette 2:03:23-Utah Valley v Boise St 2:05:28-LA Tech v Bama 2:07:32-CSUN v USC 2:09:45-UC Irvine v NMST 2:12:09-Dixie St v Gonzaga 2:14:43-CS Fullerton v Santa Clara 2:16:57-Bradley v S Dakota St 2:19:18-UC Davis v Utah St 2:21:49-NY Post Pick Kentucky v Duke 2:24:08-Oral Roberts v Colorado St 2:26:14-Cleveland St v BYU 2:18:37-E Wash v Nevada 2:30:53-Tarleton St v Stanford 2:33:06-UC Riverside v SDSU 2:35:16-Montana St v Colorado 2:37:50-Portland St v Oregon St 2:39:41- No IL v Washington 2:42:19-Chattanooga v LMU 2:44:29-No AZ v Arizona 2:46:41-CS Bakersfield v UCLA 2:50:51-Alcorn St v Wash St 2:52:47-Mt St. Mary's v Nova 2:54:40-Bethune Cookman v USF 2:57:04-C Conn St v UConn 2:59:02-Lafayette v Syracuse 3:01:19-Boston U v Rhode Island 3:03:44-Towson v Albany 3:05:31-NC A&T v UNCG 3:08:02-USC Upstate v S Carolina 3:10:11-Loyola MD v UNC 3:12:11-Presbyterian v Clemson 3:13:47-SC St v E Carolina 3:15:51-Stony Brook v George Mason 3:18:00-Hartford v Wagner 3:20:29-TX So v Oregon 3:23:02-Northeastern v Colgate 3:25:13-NC Central v Richmond 3:27:15-UMBC v UMass 3:29:38-UNC Ash v UAB 3:32:02-New Orleans v Ole Miss 3:33:09-Cornell v Binghamton 3:36:09-Texas St v Incarnate Word 3:38:10-MS Valley v St. John's 3:40:24-TN St v Bama A&M 3:42:20-Bama St v WKU 3:44:26-Francis NY v Wisconsin 3:46:10-C Ark v St Louis 3:48:49-MD E Shore v St. Joe's 3:50:32-Nicholls v N Iowa 3:52:23-Coppin St v Loyola IL 3:54:20-Francis PA v G Washington 3:56:12-McNeese v SMU 3:58:35-Maine v VA Tech 4:01:35-Ark PB v Creighton 4:03:43-N Florida v TX Tech 4:05:35-Kennesaw St v IA St 4:07:41-NW St v Oklahoma 4:09:35-Bucknell v NC St 4:11:23-Sacred Heart v La Salle 4:13:32-Marist v American 4:15:37-SE LA v Tulane 4:17:51-Jackson St v Illinois 4:20:00-Houston Baptist v Texas 4:22:00-Navy v UVA 4:24:04-Bellarmine v Purdue 4:26:09-Southern v Louisville 4:28:14-Grambling v GCU 4:30:30-Longwood v Iowa 4:32:44-Prairie View v St. Mary's 4:34:45-LIU v San Fran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode, we are filming live from Showtime Athletics in Holbrook, NY joined by Fairfield-commit Aidan Colagrande (Kings Park 2022). Aidan discusses his experience with the college recruiting process, why he chose Fairfield, his summer playing with Team Steel National, what we can expect from Kings Park this upcoming season and how made made a big jump in velocity last offseason. Special thanks to the Vitality Center in Commack, NY for sponsoring this podcast series!

Fairfield residents held a vigil over the weekend for a beloved Spanish teacher who police believe was killed by two students. Iowa health care providers have started giving Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine to kids age 5 to 11. Plus, there are concerning levels of contamination in public water systems across Iowa, according to an environmental group that sets its own health standards.

Aaron Rodgers

Dustin in Fairfield wants to know why people splash out more than $100 for suds and water.

In this edition of the New England Baseball Journal Podcast, Fairfield University's Coach Bill Currier and ace pitcher Michael Sansone join Dan Guttenplan to discuss their outstanding 2021 season and much more. Coach Currier has led the Fairfield through its best decade in program history. Sansone is a rising star who won Cape Cod League All-Star honors this past summer, and won all-MAAC first team honors last spring. Hear about their great stories in this engaging, fast-paced podcast.

On this episode of WTF California Podcast, Pittsburg High Students have every right to protest as long as Pittsburg High is consistent in its punishments. Oakland saw two more homicides last week. Fairfield Police now say missing person was homicide including arrests of two Pittsburg residents and a Fairfield man. Judge limits California law protecting vaccination sites while state renews $1.7 billion COVID lab contract. San Francisco Safeway reduces hours due to theft while Oakland provides more tiny homes for winter weather. West Hollywood could offer $17.64 minimum wage. Pomona School District to bring back school police while we talk some sports around the state. Also, a vineyards is available for sale at an $8 million price tag. Articles From the Show: Pittsburg Students Protest, Demand More Action Against Classmate Who Wore KKK Costume 3 arrested, including Travis Air Force Base airman, in death of woman, Fairfield police say  Police: 19-year-old woman killed in Fairfield after leaving Sacramento Halloween party Judge limits new California law protecting vaccination sites District Court Judge Strikes Down 30-Foot Vaccination Protest ‘Buffer Zone' Law State renews $1.7 billion contract with troubled COVID lab San Francisco Safeway cuts hours, allegedly due to 'off the charts' theft Oakland to provide tiny-home shelters in vacant lot ahead of winter weather, heat included Morgan Hill Church Pastor Faces Multiple Counts Of Child Molestation; Police Seek Additional Victims Man Charged with Impersonating an Attorney, Improperly Charging Clients $17.64 an hour? West Hollywood considering offering highest minimum wage in country Pomona Unified School District to bring back police on campus California high school officials blast team over 106-point victory Capital Christian football faces probation, playoff bans after judge's ruling Fmr. 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick Compares NFL Draft To Slavery In Netflix Documentary Famed Napa vineyard for sale for nearly 8 million

Fairfield Men's Basketball Head Coach Jay Young joins the podcast to preview the 2021-22 Stags. Coach Young breaks down the roster and talks about how returning almost his entire roster last year will help his team this season. He also recaps the COVID season, back to back games, and more. 

Doug is joined by former Fairfield University Head Coach Sydney Johnson on why he switched his college commitment from Boston College to Princeton, his experience playing in coach Pete Carril's legendary offense, what lessons he learned from coach, his path to coaching the Tigers, his experience playing overseas professionally for seven years, how he landed the Princeton head job, why he left to take the head coaching position at Fairlfield, the difficulty of getting fired, and his views on the new NIL rules. Make sure you download, rate and subscribe to get the latest All Ball Podcasts! latest All Ball Podcasts! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Doug is joined by former Fairfield University Head Coach Sydney Johnson on why he switched his college commitment from Boston College to Princeton, his experience playing in coach Pete Carril's legendary offense, what lessons he learned from coach, his path to coaching the Tigers, his experience playing overseas professionally for seven years, how he landed the Princeton head job, why he left to take the head coaching position at Fairlfield, the difficulty of getting fired, and his views on the new NIL rules. Make sure you download, rate and subscribe to get the latest All Ball Podcasts! latest All Ball Podcasts! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Wellness Wednesday How Important Is It To Be A Triple Threat? Source: https://www.danceplug.com/article/being-a-triple-threat-how-important-is-it-to-have-this-coveted-title Let's give a warm DTD welcome to new Author, Victoria Agrifolio!!! Victoria is from Fairfield, New Jersey and began dancing at age three. She studied at the School of American Ballet for five years, and while at the School, she danced in student workshops and performed roles in multiple productions with the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center, including George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, Coppélia, Mozartiana, amongst others. Victoria had the opportunity to dance in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, perform during the Lincoln Center Tree Lighting, and appear in the movie Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake. She was a member of New Jersey Ballet's Junior Company and performed major roles with their main company including Don Quixote, Swan Lake, Giselle, and others. She spent her summers training with the Miami City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Victoria graduated with degrees in both dance and journalism from New York University in 2017. While there, she had the opportunity to perform works by Trisha Brown, Stefanie Batten Bland, Giada Ferrone, Cherylyn Lavagnino, Jeremy Nelson, and others. She performed in the Santa Fe Opera's production of Die Fledermaus with choreography by Seán Curran and was also part of the domestic and international tours of “Isadora” starring Natalia Osipova with choreography from Vladimir Varnava. Victoria continues to take class, write, perform, and teach. DancePlug is Dance Plug is YOUR connection to dance. It the go-to digital hub for online classes, auditions, and articles on all things dance! Check them out on Instagram @danceplug or at danceplug.com. Are you practicing your tip for the day? Share with us on social media and tag @dancetipsdaily to be shared on our platform! Don't forget to follow us on IG and Facebook @dancetipsdaily! Stay up to date with DTD & Subscribe to the once a month newsletter at www.dancetipsdaily.com Like what you heard? Give us a 5 star rating or share with a friend to help us keep bringing well rounded & grounded dance content to you! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dance-tips-daily/support

Part 2 of the Fairfield hills hospital is here, continuing on were we left off last episode.

1. Republican mayoral candidate, Barry Lee Cohen, talked about his platform to better development plans for West Haven if elected. ((00:10))  2. Democratic mayoral candidate, David Eldridge, talked about development plans and handling the bus company issues. ((08:49)) 3. First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick says "removing the RTM' in Fairfield is premature and NOT confirmed. Plus, the latest on fast tracking new air conditioning units for all public schools in town. ((16:04)) 4. Cultural appropriations and social media: how to navigate an educate properly. ((28:40)) IMAGE CREDIT:  iStock / Getty Images Plusv

You're listening to the Westerly Sun's podcast, where we talk about news, the best local events, new job postings, obituaries, and more. First, a bit of Rhode Island trivia. Today's trivia is brought to you by Perennial. Perennial's new plant-based drink “Daily Gut & Brain” is a blend of easily digestible nutrients crafted for gut and brain health. A convenient mini-meal, Daily Gut & Brain” is available now at the CVS Pharmacy in Wakefield. Now for some trivia. Did you know that Rhode Island native, Robert Rene Gaudreau is a former professional ice hockey player? He played in the NHL from 1992 to 1996 with the San Jose Sharks and Ottawa Senators. Internationally Gaudreau played for the American national team at the senior and junior level, including the 1993 World Championships. Now, we turn our feature story…. Gov. Ned Lamont has submitted a request for a major disaster declaration to the Biden administration, seeking federal funds to help Connecticut recover from damage caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida. The Sept. 1st storm dumped as much as 8 inches of rain on parts of the state, resulting in heavy flooding and an estimated $7.2 million in damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure. It also resulted in the death of State Police Sgt. Brian Mohl, whose vehicle was swept away in floodwaters. Lamont said: “The effects from the remnants of Hurricane Ida were of such severity that effective recovery is beyond the capabilities of state and local governments, and as a result, supplemental federal assistance is necessary.” Lamont's request would allow homeowners in Fairfield and New London counties, as well residents of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Mohegan Tribal Nation, to receive federal reimbursements for the costs of uninsured damage to their housing and personal property. According to Lamont's request, just 8% of damaged homes in New London County and 23% in Fairfield County had flood insurance. The proposed declaration also would allow municipalities in Fairfield and Middlesex counties to receive up to 75% federal reimbursement of the costs of uninsured damage to roads and other infrastructure, as well as costs for emergency response. The governor's office said public assistance damage assessments in Litchfield, New Haven and New London counties have not been completed and his request could be updated. Stay up to date on this story and more at westerlysun.com There are a lot of businesses in our community that are hiring right now, so we're excited to tell you about some new job listings. Today's Job posting comes from Cargill in Westerly. They're looking for shipping and receiving associates. You'll be responsible for working in a fast paced environment packing meat products. Pay is up $20.00 per hour. If you're interested and think you'd be a good fit for the role you can apply using the link in our episode description. https://www.indeed.com/jobs?l=Westerly%2C%20RI&mna=5&aceid&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpf2IBhDkARIsAGVo0D2S3gEb-328GyRpBuTTeeKPdn3-klOh0KYAsfete6MEZmI5S4qTg-4aAnQkEALw_wcB&vjk=740518464e480bd4 Today we're remembering the life of Helen "Penny" Collings.  Helen, a birth-rite Quaker, was born in Lansdowne, PA. After a combined eight years of living in Boston and New Jersey, the family came back to the Philadelphia area settling in Rosemont. The family constant were summers spent in Weekapaug, Rhode Island. Throughout her childhood, competitive ice skating and sailing the sneakbox on Weekapaug pond were two joys. Helen attended Shipley School and graduated in 1943. In 1945 Penny and Clif were married and made their home in St. David's, raising their four children. Their family summers were split between Weekapaug and Squam Lake, NH. After the children were grown, Penny and Clif moved to Haverford with their later years living at Beaumont at Bryn Mawr, all-the-while wintering at "The Nest" in Vero Beach, Florida. Helen's abundant love, great sense of humor and energy were focused on family and friends, but also included running for public office and her volunteer work. Growing up a Pennock meant flowers were always in her life. She won first prize at the Philadelphia Flower Show for "Individual Floral Arranging". She also was a faithful member of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church where she served as a Deacon for many years. During WWII she trained as a nurse's aid and continued her service during the Vietnam War. Helen volunteered as a "Grey Lady" at the Valley Forge Hospital in Coatesville, PA. Twice a week she escorted the amputees from Fort Dix, NJ to Valley Forge Hospital on an old school bus. After listening to the men in extreme discomfort during transportation Helen used her power of persuasion in Washington D.C. and Detroit to have money appropriated to build a prototype deluxe bus equipped with special shock absorbers for the amputees. That bus was nicknamed "The Collings Special". Helen was later honored at Walter Reed Hospital, outside Washington, D.C., for her insight, tenacity and accomplishment. Penny made long lasting friends wherever she went. She and Clif loved life together! Traveling the world extensively, playing golf and bridge, her fun sense of humor always on display. She is survived by her sister, her four children,  her six grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren. Thank you for taking a moment with us today to remember and celebrate Penny's life. That's it for today, we'll be back next time with more! Also, remember to check out our sponsor Perennial, Daily Gut & Brain, available at the CVS on Main St. in Wakefield! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a brand new episode called Fairfield Hospital, This is PT. 1 

There is a new Google phone coming out that is close to an Iphone, a man in Atlanta went to a waffle house where his waitress pulled a gun on him, and a home in Fairfield that was VRBO got a disturbing message from their neighbors!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fairfield First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick talks about the strategic plan to revise the town government of Fairfield.

Wayne's first admission at Napa State Hospital was when he was 12 years old, in 1972. Wayne has had 115 admissions at NSH since that time, but all were civil commitments. Since 1972 his mother, brother, and sister have all sat around and used marijuana and done this with psyche-tech his mothers Lagunitas home on weekend passes. Wayne even went to my psyche-tech's home in Fairfield, were he used marijuana and Dexedrine, while on a weekend pass at the age of 13-16. There was a time at NSH when a psyche-tech fell in love with Wayne and he was given Ritalin in injection form ;(whenever). Wayne was 17, and was going to marry. He cannot even start to tell the whole stories of sick, Psychiatrist, sexual demons, asking for women clients to perform sexual acts in front of them. Psyche-techs whom would exchange drugs, pills, alcohol, marijuana for sex. Rapes that go on at NSH men and females. The bathrooms are havens for sexual deviant behavior. According to Wayne, "The Clients Rights Groups get paid by NSH so no real reports are filed. Psychiatric and psyche-techs seem to be immune from any kind of outside investigation. Its a fact psyche-techs use Gestapo-type tactics and invent symptoms without evidence in order to delay discharge of patients. Open Units are overcrowded. All staff and Doctors after a few years all get dirty. The code of silence is away of life at Napa State Hospital. Its the biggest cult in the world The Cult of Mental Health. Everyone supports courts, churches, police. Its time for change. Not some group like Scientologists or CCHR to do half the job, we need change in the way State Mental Health is run." Now listen to all our XZBN shows, with our compliments go to: https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv or www.xzoneuniverse.com *** AND NOW *** The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.com The ‘X' Zone TV Channel Radio Feed (Free - No Subscription Required) - https://www.spreaker.com/show/xztv-the-x-zone-tv-show-audio The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com (Free) To contact Rob McConnell - misterx@xzoneradiotv.com

Wayne's first admission at Napa State Hospital was when he was 12 years old, in 1972. Wayne has had 115 admissions at NSH since that time, but all were civil commitments. Since 1972 his mother, brother, and sister have all sat around and used marijuana and done this with psyche-tech his mothers Lagunitas home on weekend passes. Wayne even went to my psyche-tech's home in Fairfield, were he used marijuana and Dexedrine, while on a weekend pass at the age of 13-16. There was a time at NSH when a psyche-tech fell in love with Wayne and he was given Ritalin in injection form ;(whenever). Wayne was 17, and was going to marry. He cannot even start to tell the whole stories of sick, Psychiatrist, sexual demons, asking for women clients to perform sexual acts in front of them. Psyche-techs whom would exchange drugs, pills, alcohol, marijuana for sex. Rapes that go on at NSH men and females. The bathrooms are havens for sexual deviant behavior. According to Wayne, "The Clients Rights Groups get paid by NSH so no real reports are filed. Psychiatric and psyche-techs seem to be immune from any kind of outside investigation. Its a fact psyche-techs use Gestapo-type tactics and invent symptoms without evidence in order to delay discharge of patients. Open Units are overcrowded. All staff and Doctors after a few years all get dirty. The code of silence is away of life at Napa State Hospital. Its the biggest cult in the world The Cult of Mental Health. Everyone supports courts, churches, police. Its time for change. Not some group like Scientologists or CCHR to do half the job, we need change in the way State Mental Health is run." Now listen to all our XZBN shows, with our compliments go to: https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv or www.xzoneuniverse.com *** AND NOW *** The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.com The ‘X' Zone TV Channel Radio Feed (Free - No Subscription Required) - https://www.spreaker.com/show/xztv-the-x-zone-tv-show-audio The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com (Free) To contact Rob McConnell - misterx@xzoneradiotv.com

Wayne's first admission at Napa State Hospital was when he was 12 years old, in 1972. Wayne has had 115 admissions at NSH since that time, but all were civil commitments. Since 1972 his mother, brother, and sister have all sat around and used marijuana and done this with psyche-tech his mothers Lagunitas home on weekend passes. Wayne even went to my psyche-tech's home in Fairfield, were he used marijuana and Dexedrine, while on a weekend pass at the age of 13-16. There was a time at NSH when a psyche-tech fell in love with Wayne and he was given Ritalin in injection form ;(whenever). Wayne was 17, and was going to marry. He cannot even start to tell the whole stories of sick, Psychiatrist, sexual demons, asking for women clients to perform sexual acts in front of them. Psyche-techs whom would exchange drugs, pills, alcohol, marijuana for sex. Rapes that go on at NSH men and females. The bathrooms are havens for sexual deviant behavior. According to Wayne, "The Clients Rights Groups get paid by NSH so no real reports are filed. Psychiatric and psyche-techs seem to be immune from any kind of outside investigation. Its a fact psyche-techs use Gestapo-type tactics and invent symptoms without evidence in order to delay discharge of patients. Open Units are overcrowded. All staff and Doctors after a few years all get dirty. The code of silence is away of life at Napa State Hospital. Its the biggest cult in the world The Cult of Mental Health. Everyone supports courts, churches, police. Its time for change. Not some group like Scientologists or CCHR to do half the job, we need change in the way State Mental Health is run."Now listen to all our XZBN shows, with our compliments go to: https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv or www.xzoneuniverse.com *** AND NOW ***The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.comThe ‘X' Zone TV Channel Radio Feed (Free - No Subscription Required) - https://www.spreaker.com/show/xztv-the-x-zone-tv-show-audio The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com (Free)To contact Rob McConnell - misterx@xzoneradiotv.com

Welcome to a new era of The SUCCESS Line! Ben Fairfield, the Managing Director of SUCCESS Coaching, is starting his time as the host of the show. He welcomes on Editor-in-Chief Josh Ellis to talk about the change, introduce himself and help Josh with an issue in Josh's life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a new era of The SUCCESS Line! Ben Fairfield, the Managing Director of SUCCESS Coaching, is starting his time as the host of the show. He welcomes on Editor-in-Chief Josh Ellis to talk about the change, introduce himself and help Josh with an issue in Josh's life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nikki Meddoro talks about a neighborhood in Fairfield targeting an illegal short term rental house by tagging the garage door with a threatening message and slashing the tires of the innocent renters...do homeowners have the right to rent out their house to vacationers? Also, when a Tik Tok star stuffed his SF rental car full of $30k full of music equipment, was he just asking to get robbed at gunpoint? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nikki Meddoro talks about a neighborhood in Fairfield targeting an illegal short term rental house by tagging the garage door with a threatening message and slashing the tires of the innocent renters...do homeowners have the right to rent out their house to vacationers? Also, when a Tik Tok star stuffed his SF rental car full of $30k full of music equipment, was he just asking to get robbed at gunpoint? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

10/18/21 - Former Westport PZC Chair Kathy Walsh And Fairfield First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick by The Lisa Wexler Show

Fairfield First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick joins the show to discuss the upcoming election. Photo:  iStock / Getty Images Plus mguttman

Lou Lopez Senechal is a 23 years old Senior and basketball player at Fairfield university. Recognized as the MAAC rookie of the year in 2018/2019. Also recognized  in the MAAC all championship team in 2020/2021.

On Long Island, A Tribal Nation Faces Growing Pressures The Hamptons on Long Island are known as a mansion-lined escape for wealthy New Yorkers. But the area is also home to the Native residents of the Shinnecock Tribal Nation. An estimated 1,500 Shinnecock members are left in the U.S., and about half live on the Nation's territory on Long Island. As with the rest of the island, Shinnecock Nation is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Receding shorelines threaten to eat up three-quarters of its territory by 2050, adding to the existing threat of development from the Hamptons. This issue of climate change and its impacts around Long Island is the subject of the new podcast, “Higher Ground,” from WSHU Public Radio in Fairfield, Connecticut. One of the stories told in the podcast is that of Tela Troge, Shinnecock tribal sovereignty attorney and kelp farmer, who lives on Shinnecock territory in Long Island.  Tela talks to Ira about seeing climate change and development affect Shinnecock land with her own eyes, and her venture into kelp farming as a tool for nitrogen sequestration.      The World According To Sound: Listening To Lightning There is more than one way to listen to a bolt of lightning. While you can pick up the boom and rumble of thunder with your ears, if you tune in with a radio receiver, you can hear an entirely different sound: an earth whistler. When lightning strikes, it releases electromagnetic radiation in the VLF or Very Low Frequency band, which runs from 3 Hz to 30 kHz. This falls within the human range of hearing, which spans from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. However, we can not hear whistlers with our own ears because the radiation is electromagnetic, not physical vibrations in the air. We can, though, capture the electromagnetic radiation with a radio receiver. Radio operators have been picking up the strange twanging of lightning ever since they started trying to tune into man-made signals. They dubbed the eerie electro-magnetic disturbances in their headphones “earth whistlers.” People first heard earth whistlers back in the 19th century. The electromagnetic radiation from lightning interfered with telephone lines and crept into phone conversations. You'd be talking with someone and hear these bursts of energy, like little phone ghosts.  Today, we know earth whistlers are made by the interaction of lightning with the planet's magnetic field. There are over a million lightning strikes in the atmosphere, which means there is a nearly constant chorus around earth.  The whistlers in this piece were provided courtesy of NASA and The University of Iowa.  The World According to Sound is a live audio show, online listening series, and miniature podcast that focuses on sound, not story. Producers Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett create intentional, communal listening experiences as a way to “reclaim autonomy in a visually dominated world that is increasingly fracturing our attention.”  This recording is part of their next listening series, an immersive listening party where audiences from all over the globe will be invited to experience a world of sound together, beginning in January 2022. You can get a ticket to the series here.      Save The Wetlands, Save The World In Rising, the Science Friday Book Club pick for this fall, author Elizabeth Rush writes frequently of marshes. Rush explores the disappearing wetlands of Louisiana's hurricane-battered coast, the San Francisco Bay Estuary, Staten Island's newly abandoned flood zones, and other marshes around the country. But why, scientifically speaking, are wetlands such a feature of the conversation around coastal resilience to climate change and rising seas.  In a recording with a ‘live' Zoom audience, SciFri producer Christie Taylor speaks with wetland ecologists Marcelo Ardón and Letitia Grenier about the resilience and adaptability of marshland, how climate change and sea level rise threatens them, and why protecting and restoring tidelands is good for everyone.      Widening The Lens On A More Inclusive Science In 2012, the Obama administration projected that the United States would need to add an additional 1 million college graduates in STEM fields per year for the next ten years to keep up with projected growth in the need for science and technology expertise. At the same time, though, native Americans and other Indigenous groups are underrepresented in the sciences, making up only 0.2% of the STEM workforce in 2014, despite being 2% of the total population of the United States. Why are Indigenous people still underrepresented in science?   In this re-broadcast of the 2019 conversation, Ira speaks with astrophysicist Annette Lee and anthropologist Kim TallBear about the historical role of science and observation in Indigenous communities, and how Western scientific culture can leave out other voices. They also discuss the solutions: What does an inclusive scientific enterprise look like, and how could we get there?      This Weekend, Take Time For The Moon This Saturday marks International Observe the Moon Night, a worldwide astronomy education event encouraging people to take time to look at the moon—through a telescope, if possible. Around the world, astronomers will be setting up public telescopes and encouraging passers-by to take a look.  Dean Regas, astronomer at the Cincinnati Observatory, joins Ira to explain how to get in on the lunar-observation action. They also talk about other astronomical events, including the ongoing Orionid meteor shower and an upcoming partial lunar eclipse on November 19.  

#034: Real Organic dairy farmer, soil scientist, and former National Organic Standards Board member Francis Thicke sheds light on how the USDA program has been lost to corporate influence.  He also shares enlightening and easy-to-follow explanations about the upsides of cows on grass.Francis Thicke owns and operates Radiance Dairy in Fairfield, Iowa with his wife Susan, which produces milk, cream, cheese, and yogurt on site . He has worked for the USDA as a soil scientist and has served on the National Organic Standards Board. Francis currently serves on the Real Organic Project Standards Board.To watch a video version of this podcast please visit:https://www.realorganicproject.org/francis-thicke-unpacking-industrial-takeover-of-organic-episode-thirty-fourThe Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement working towards certifying 1,000 farms across the United States this year. Our add-on food label distinguishes soil-grown fruits and vegetables from hydroponically-raised produce. It also identifies pasture-raised meat, milk, and eggs as compared to products harvested from animals in horrific confinement (CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations).To find a Real Organic farm near you, please visit:https://www.realorganicproject.org/farmsWe believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be. But the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing small farms that follow the law. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but are still paying a premium price. The lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront.If you like what you hear and are feeling inspired, we would love for you to join our movement by becoming one of our 1,000  Real Fans!https://www.realorganicproject.org/1000-real-fans/To read our weekly newsletter (which might just be the most forwarded newsletter on the internet!) and get firsthand news about what's happening with organic food, farming and policy, please subscribe here:https://www.realorganicproject.org/email/

Speaker: Rev. Joseph Manaway, Youth & Young Adult Pastor at Mount Calvary Baptist Church, Fairfield, California 2 Chronicles 7:1 - It's Getting Hot In Here! 1. Consecration 2. Collaboration 3. Construction 4. Continuity 5. Carrying 6. Celebration --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Thom Krystofiak holds a B.A. from Harvard (magna cum laude) and an M.A. from Cambridge University, where he was a Knox Fellow. A trained teacher of Transcendental Meditation, he joined an intentional community in Fairfield, Iowa in 1983, where he and his wife continue to live. There he encountered a cornucopia of spiritual seekers. A rigorous and thoroughgoing skeptic surrounded by ready believers, he has developed unique perspectives on the eternal yet ever-new contest of doubt versus belief. Website: krystofiak.com Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded October 2, 2021. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

We are in a series where we revisit all of the Wish You Were Heres that have been shared on our podcast, this time broken down by location. This week we're revisiting locations from Northern California. 3:55 Walt Disney Family Museum, San Francisco, CA 6:00 Coit Tower Viewpoint, San Francisco, CA 7:40 Specs, San Francisco, CA 9:05 Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco, CA 14:50 Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, CA 19:35 Glass Sand Beach, Fort Bragg, CA 22:25 Dr. Seuss Art at Markus Ashley Gallery, Lake Tahoe, CA 29:15 The Jelly Belly Factory, Fairfield, CA 31:30 Point Reyes Lighthouse, Point Reyes, CA Follow us on Twitter & Instagram: @tmwypodcast  Leave us a voicemail (or text message): (406)763-8699  Email: tmwypodcast@gmail.com 

A new vaccination hub opened in Fairfield community centre and people started queuing up to get vaccinate. SBS Assyrian spoke to Mr Paul Georgis, promoter of the champagne, who was there to inspect the vaccination process.

Garrett Hickey is entering his fifth season at Fairfield Prep.  Hickey was previously an Assistant Coach at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut from 2015-2017.  Prior to his time at Albertus, Hickey was a scout for Notre Dame Fairfield High School.  Garrett produces a weekly newsletter for coaches called Share the Game, is a Fast Model Contributor, and works with PHD Basketball as a skills trainer and AAU coach. Hickey also teaches middle school social studies in Bridgeport, Connecticut. If you're looking to improve your coaching please consider joining the Hoop Heads Mentorship Program.  We believe that having a mentor is the best way to maximize your potential and become a transformational coach. By matching you up with one of our experienced mentors you'll develop a one on one relationship that will help your coaching, your team, your program, and your mindset.  The Hoop Heads Mentorship Program delivers mentoring services to basketball coaches at all levels through our team of experienced Head Coaches. Find out more at hoopheadspod.com or shoot me an email directly mike@hoopheadspod.com Follow us on social media @hoopheadspod on Twitter and Instagram and be sure to check out the Hoop Heads Podcast Network for more great basketball content. Grab your notebook before you listen to this episode with Garrett Hickey, Assistant Boys' Basketball Coach at Fairfield Prep in the state of Connecticut. Website - https://jesuitpride.com/sports/mens-basketball (https://jesuitpride.com/sports/mens-basketball) Email - coachhickey@ctphd.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/Coach_Hickey5 (@Coach_Hickey5) Visit our Sponsors! https://www.drdishbasketball.com/ (Dr. Dish Basketball) Mention the Hoop Heads Podcast when you place your order and get $300 off a brand new state of the art Dr. Dish Shooting Machine! http://www.fastmodelsports.com/ (Fast Model Sports) Use Code SAVE10 to get 10% off the number one play diagramming software for coaches https://gripspritz.net/ (Grip Spritz) Grip Spritz revitalizes and cleans the soles of your basketball shoes to stop you from slipping and sliding on the court! Better Grip, Better Game! Twitter Podcast - https://twitter.com/hoopheadspod (@hoopheadspod) Mike - https://twitter.com/hdstarthoops (@hdstarthoops) Jason - https://twitter.com/jsunkle (@jsunkle) Network - https://twitter.com/HoopHeadsPodNet (@HoopHeadsPodNet) Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hoopheadspod/ (@hoopheadspod) Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hoopheadspod/ (https://www.facebook.com/hoopheadspod/) YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDoVTtvpgwwOVL4QVswqMLQ (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDoVTtvpgwwOVL4QVswqMLQ) Support this podcast

Kaylee Christie still has a note saved on her iPhone from January 31, 2019 that simply says: “Why can't I talk? When will I be able to talk again?”   During her senior year of high school, now-19-year-old Kaylee was diagnosed with Hemiplegic migraines, a variant of migraines that produces stroke-like symptoms. She was at school early in the morning practicing with her volleyball teammates when the first episode struck; Kaylee's dream was to become a Division 1 volleyball player, and she'd fit in pre-school workouts each morning after waking at 5:30 a.m. to finish her AP homework.    The recovery process, as she remembers it, was slow and painful.    “I had to learn how to read, write, talk and walk all over again,” she says. “It was a battle every single day, just learning how to be myself again. And without the mobility and physicality to function as a regular person, I wasn't able to play volleyball.”    Kaylee wasn't prepared to give up on her dream, though — not even close. Despite suffering from chronic Hemiplegic migraines and never knowing when the next attack would hit, she relentlessly pursued and achieved her goal, receiving a full scholarship to Fairfield University as a member of its D1 volleyball team.   But the episodes continued. And then COVID hit. After being sent home for virtually classes alongside the rest of her classmates, Kaylee received a phone call from her volleyball coach: she was being medically disqualified from the team.    It was a punch to the gut. And yet, thanks to some spot-on words of wisdom from her mother, Kaylee overcame the setback and went on to identify a new purpose, continuing her education at Fairfield. On this episode of the Still Winning podcast, Kaylee tells Mikala what it was like to receive her diagnosis, have certain dreams taken away from her, and find the perseverance to create even better ones.   What You'll Learn: How Kaylee developed mental toughness, despite experiencing Hemiplegic migraine episodes every 2-4 weeks as a college freshman in brand new surroundings  How she's reshaped her dreams while still keeping her love of volleyball alive — and how she found the courage to do that The way Kaylee plans to change the world through data analytics (and specifically change the world for African American women and African American mothers) And much more!   Favorite Quote:   “I think the biggest thing is that I never rethought my decisions. I was never like, ‘Oh, I don't want to do this anymore. And that's what kept me going. I never doubted.” — Kaylee Christie   How to Get Involved:   Connect with Kaylee:    LinkedIn   Connect with Mikala:   Facebook  

I'm kicking this episode off with some fun event coverage, followed up by announcements for our Oktoberfest / OK To Beer event happening right here inside Jungle Jim's International Market in Fairfield.   It's not JUST Oktoberfest happening this month though, as we also celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival in this episode's segment of The Taste Test. I finally got to try a traditional mooncake! Find out how much I loved it!   Later, we're joined by Ferdinand from our expansive beer department to teach me about some fall beer offerings, and then a deep dive into the company's infrastructure with our Director of Development, Phill Adams. Don't worry, we made sure to investigate some famous Jungle Rumors too. Submit your favorite rumors (and all other questions) to podcast@Junglejims.com   Visit www.junglejims.com/wjji to submit your show ideas! Music by: "Space Station Shuffle" by Star Silk "Lo-fi Juicy" by Nicholas Clay "The Taste Test theme" by Danny Poland "Little Orange Bike" by S. R. Woodward Helpful timecodes: 00:00 - Mark's intro and trip to the jazz fest 03:13 - "What's up in the Jungle?" - event coverage 06:16 - "Discoveries" section in the Jungle, snack chat 09:00 - The Taste Test - Mooncakes 16:59 - Intro to Ferdinand Sneed, beer buyer and OK To Beer Party 30:50 - Jungle Rumors segment and interview setup 33:35 - Phill Adams, Director of Development Interview 68:09 - Show Outro

In hour one, Lance and his callers react to the news on Reds manager David Bell receiving a two-year contract extension. In hour two, Lance is joined in studio by longtime Enquirer TV and radio critic John Kiesewetter on his latest book "Joe Nuxhall: The Old Lefthander and Me." In hour three, Lance continues the conversation on David Bell. He is then joined by Ben Otto, who will be walking from his house, near Joe Nuxhall Miracle League Field in Fairfield, to Great American Ball Park on Friday raising money.

Lance is joined by Ben Otto who is walking from his house near Joe Nuxhall Miracle League Field in Fairfield to Great American Ball Park raising money.

There's a place where sports and data meet, and it's as powerful a collision as on any football field!  Jeff Sagarin has been a figurehead in the sports analytics realm for decades, and we're thrilled to have had the chance to have him on to talk about his data journey!  There's a fair mix of math AND sports geek out time in this episode.  And, did we mention that Dr. Wayne Winston is sitting in on this episode as well? References in this Episode: 2 Frictionless Colliding Boxes Video Scorigami Episode Transcript: Rob Collie (00:00:00): Hello, friends. Today's guest is Jeff Sagarin. Is that name familiar to you? It's very familiar to me. In my life, Jeff's work might very well be my first brush with the concept of using data for any sort of advantage. His Power Ranking Columns, first appeared in USA Today in 1985, when I was 11 years old. And what a fascinating concept that was. Rob Collie (00:00:29): It probably won't surprise you if I confess that 11-year-old me was not particularly good at sports, but I was still fascinated and captivated by them. 11-year-old kids in my neighborhood were especially prone to associating sports with their tribal identity. Everyone had their favorite teams, their favorite sports stars. And invariably, this led to arguments about which sports star was better than the other sports star, who was going to win this game coming up and who would win a tournament amongst all of these teams and things of that sort. Rob Collie (00:01:01): Now that I've explained it that way though, I guess being an adult sports fan isn't too terribly different, is it? Those arguments, of course, aren't the sorts of arguments where there's anything resembling a clear winner. But in practice, the person who won was usually the one with the loudest voice or the sickest burn that they could deliver to their friends. And then in 1985, the idea was planted in my head by Jeff Sagarin's column in USA Today, that there actually was a relatively objective way to evaluate teams that had never played against one another and likely never would. Rob Collie (00:01:33): I wasn't into computers at the time. I certainly wasn't into the concept of data. I didn't know what a database was. I didn't know what a spreadsheet was. And yet, this was still an incredibly captivating and powerful idea. So in my life, Jeff Sagarin is the first public figure that I encountered in the sports analytics industry long before it was cool. And because it was sports, a topic that was relevant to 11-year-old me, he's really also my first brush with analytics at all. Rob Collie (00:02:07): It's not surprising then, that to me, Jeff is absolutely a celebrity. As a guest, in insider podcasting lingo, Jeff is what we call a good get. We owe that pleasure, of course, to him being close friends with Wayne Winston, a former guest on the show, who also joined us today as co-guest. Rob Collie (00:02:28): Now, if none of that speaks to you, let's try this alternate description. He's probably also the world's most famous active FORTRAN programmer. I admit that I was so starstruck by this that I didn't even really push as hard as I normally would, in terms of getting into the techniques that he uses. I didn't want to run afoul of asking him for trade secrets. At times, this conversation did devolve into four dudes sitting around talking about sports. Rob Collie (00:02:59): But setting that aside, there are some really, really interesting and heartwarming things happening in this conversation as well. Again, the accidental path to where he is today, the intersection of persistence and good fortune that's required really for success in anything. Bottom line, this is the story of a national and highly influential figure at the intersection of the sports industry and the analytics industry for more than three decades. It's not every day you get to hear that story. So let's get into it. Announcer (00:03:34): Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? Announcer (00:03:39): This is the Raw Data by P3 Adaptive podcast with your host, Rob Colley and your co-host, Thomas LaRock. Find out what the experts at P3 Adaptive can do for your business. Just go to p3adaptive.com. Raw Data by P3 Adaptive is data with the human element. Rob Collie (00:04:02): Welcome to the show, Jeff Sagarin. And welcome back to the show. Wayne Winston. So thrilled to have the two of you with us today. This is awesome. We've been looking forward to this for a long time. So thank you very much gentlemen, for being here. Jeff Sagarin (00:04:16): You're welcome. Rob Collie (00:04:18): Jeff, usually we kick these things off with, "Hey, tell us a little about yourself, your background, blah, blah, blah." Let's start off with me telling you about you. It's a story about you that you wouldn't know. I remember for a very long time being aware of you. Rob Collie (00:04:35): So I'm 47 years old, born in 1974. My father had participated for many years in this shady off-the-books college football pick'em pool that was run out of the high school in a small town in Florida. Like the sheets with everybody's entries would show up. They were run on ditto paper, like that blue ink. It was done in the school ditto room and he did this every year. This was like the most fascinating thing that happened in the entire year to me. Like these things showing up at our house, this packet of all these picks, believe it or not, they were handwritten. These grids were handwritten with everyone's picks. It was ridiculous. Rob Collie (00:05:17): He got eliminated every year. There were a couple of hundred entries every year and he just got his butt kicked every year. But then one year, he did his homework. He researched common opponents and things like that or that kind of stuff. I seem to recall this having something to do timing wise with you. So I looked it up. Your column first appeared in USA Today in 1985. Is that correct? Jeff Sagarin (00:05:40): Yeah. Tuesday, January 8th 1985. Rob Collie (00:05:44): I remember my dad winning this pool that year and using the funds to buy a telescope to look at Halley's Comet when it showed up. And so I looked up Halley's Comet. What do you know? '86. So it would have been like the January ballgames of 1986, where he won this pool. And in '85, were you power ranking college football teams or was that other sports? Jeff Sagarin (00:06:11): Yes. Rob Collie (00:06:12): Okay. So when my dad said that he did his research that year, what he really did was read your stuff. You bought my dad a telescope in 1986 so that we could go have one of the worst family vacations of all time. It was just awful. Thank you. Jeff Sagarin (00:06:31): You're very welcome. Rob Collie (00:06:39): I kind of think of you as the first publicly known figure in sports analytics. You probably weren't the first person to apply math and computers to sports analytics, but you're the first person I heard of. Jeff Sagarin (00:06:51): There is a guy that people don't even talk about very much. Now a guy named Earnshaw Cook, who first inspired me when I was a sophomore in high school in the '63-'64 school year, there was an article by Frank Deford in Sports Illustrated about Earnshaw Cook publishing a book called Percentage Baseball. So I convinced my mom to let me have $10 to order it by mail and I got it. I started playing around with his various ideas in it. He was the first guy I ever heard of and that was in March of 1964. Rob Collie (00:07:28): All right, so everyone's got an origin story. Jeff Sagarin (00:07:31): The Dunkel family started doing the Dunkel ratings back I believe in 1929. Then there was a professor, I think he was at Vanderbilt, named [Lipkin House 00:07:41], he was I think at Vanderbilt. And for years, he did the high school ratings in states like maybe Tennessee and Kentucky. I think he gave Kentucky that Louisville courier his methodology before he died. But I don't know if they continue his work or not. But there were people way before me. Rob Collie (00:08:03): But they weren't in USA Today. Jeff Sagarin (00:08:04): That's true. Rob Collie (00:08:06): They weren't nationally distributed, like on a very regular basis. I've been hearing your name longer than I've even been working with computers. That's pretty crazy. How did you even get hooked up with USA Today? Jeff Sagarin (00:08:23): People might say, "You got lucky." My answer, as you'll see as well, I'd worked for 12 years to be in a position to get lucky. I started getting paid for doing this in September of 1972 with an in-house publication of pro football weekly called Insider's Pro Football Newsletter. Jeff Sagarin (00:08:45): In the Spring of '72, I'd written letters to like 100 newspapers saying because I had started by hand doing my own rating system for pro football in the fall of 1971. Just by hand, every Sunday night, I'd get the scores and add in the Monday night. I did it as a hobby. I wasn't doing it for a living. I did it week by week and charted the teams. It was all done with some charts I'd made up with a normal distribution and a slide rule. So I sent out letters in the spring of '72 to about 100 papers saying, "Hey, would you be interested in running my stuff?" Jeff Sagarin (00:09:19): They either didn't answer me or all said, "No, not interested." But I got a call right before I left to go to California when an old college friend that spring. It was from William Wallace, who was a big time football correspondent for The New York Times. That anecdote may be in that article by Andy Glockner. He called me up, he was at the New York Times, but he said also, "I write articles for extra money for pro football weekly. I wanted to just kind of talk to you." Jeff Sagarin (00:09:49): He wrote an article that appeared in Pro Quarterback magazine in September of '72. But during the middle of that summer, I got a phone call from Pro Football weekly, the publisher, a guy named [inaudible 00:10:04] said, "Hey Jeff. Have you seen our ad in street and Smith's?" It didn't matter. It could have been their pro magazine or college. I said, "Yeah, I did." And he said, "Do you notice it said we've got a world famous handicapper to do our predictions for us?" I said, "Yeah, I did see that." He said, "How would you like to be that world famous handicapper? We don't have anybody." Jeff Sagarin (00:10:25): We just said that because he said William Wallace told us to call you. So I said, "Okay, I'll be your world famous handicapper." I didn't start off that well and they had this customer, it was a paid newsletter and there was a customer from Hawaii. He had a great name, Charles Fujiwara. He'd send letters every week saying, "Sagarin's terrible, but he's winning a fortune for me. I just reverse his picks every week." So finally, finally, my numbers turn the tide and I had this one great week, where I went 8-0. He sent another letter saying, "I'm bankrupt. The kid destroyed me." Because he was reversing all my picks. That's a true story. Rob Collie (00:11:07): At least he had a sense of humor. It sounds like a pretty interesting fellow on the other end of that letter. Jeff Sagarin (00:11:13): He sounds like he could have been like the guy, if you've ever seen reruns of the old show, '77 Sunset Strip. In it, there this guy who's kind of a racetrack trout gambler named Roscoe. He sounds like he could have been Roscoe. Rob Collie (00:11:26): We have to look that one up. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:11:27): It's before your time. Rob Collie (00:11:28): I don't think I saw that show. Jeff Sagarin (00:11:29): Yeah. Wayne's seen it though. Rob Collie (00:11:31): Yes. I love that. There are things that are both before my time and I have like old man knees. So I've heard this kind of thing before, by the way. It's called the 10-year overnight success. Jeff Sagarin (00:11:47): I forgot. How did I get with USA Today? I started with Pro Football weekly and continued with them. I was with them until actually why don't we say sometime in the fall of '82. I ended up in other newspapers, little by little: The Boston Globe, Louisville Courier Journal. And then in the spring of '81, I got into a conversation over the phone with Jim van Valkenburg, who is the stat guy at the NCAA. I happened to mention that going into the tournament, I had Indiana to win the tournament. They were rated like 10th in the conventional polls. Jeff Sagarin (00:12:23): And so he remembered that and he kept talking behind the scenes to people in the NCAA about that. And so years later, in 1988, they called me out to talk to them. But anyhow, I had developed a good reputation and I gave him as a reference. Wayne called me up excitedly in let's say, early September of 1984. He said, "Hey, Jeff. You've got to buy a copy of today's USA Today and turn to the end of the sports section. You're going to be sick." Jeff Sagarin (00:12:53): I said, "Really? Okay." So I opened to where he said and I was sick. They had computer ratings by some guy. He was a good guy named Thomas Jech, J-E-C-H. And I said, "Damn, that should be me. I've been doing this for all these years and I didn't even know they were looking for this." So I call up on the phone. Sometimes there's a lot of luck involved. I got to talk to a guy named Bob Barbara who I believe is retired now there. He had on the phone this gruff sounding voice out of like a Grade B movie from the film, The War. "What's going on Kitty?" It sounds like he had a cigar in his mouth. Jeff Sagarin (00:13:30): I said, "Well, I do these computer ratings." [inaudible 00:13:33] Said "Well, really? That's interesting. We've already got somebody." He said, "But how would you even send it to us?" I said, "Well, I dictate over the phone." He said, "Dictate? We don't take dictation at USA Today, kid. Have you ever heard of personal computers and a modem?" I said, "Well, I have but I just do it on a mainframe at IU and I dictate over the phone to the Louisville Courier and the local..." Jeff Sagarin (00:13:58): Well, the local paper here, I gave them a printout. He said, "Kid, you need to buy yourself a PC and learn how to use a modem." So I kind of was embarrassed. I said, "Well, I'll see." So about 10 days later, I called him up and said, "Hey, what's the phone number for your modem?" He said, "Crap. You again, kid? I thought I got rid of you." He says, "All right. I'll give you the phone number." So I sent him a sample printout. He says, "Yeah, yeah, we got it. Keep in touch. We're not going to change for football. But this other guy, he may not want to do basketball. So keep in touch. Who knows what will happen for basketball?" Jeff Sagarin (00:14:31): So every month I'd call up saying, "It's me again, keeping touch." He said, "I can't get rid of you. You're like a bad penny that keeps turning up." So finally he says look, after about five of these calls, spreading out until maybe late November, "Look kid, why don't you wait... Call me up the first Sunday of the new year," which would have been like Sunday, January 6 of 1985 I believe. So I waited. I called him up. Sure enough, he said, "You again?" I said, "You told me you wanted to do college basketball." Jeff Sagarin (00:15:04): He said, "Yeah, you're kind of right. The other guy doesn't want to do it." So he said, "Well, do you mind if we call it the USA Today computer ratings? We kind of like to put our own name on everything." I said, "Well, wait a minute. During the World Series, you had Pete Rose as your guest columnist, you want not only gave his name, but you had a picture of him." He said, "God damn it." He said, "I can't..." He said, "You win again kid. Give us a bio." Jeff Sagarin (00:15:32): An old friend of both me and Wayne was on a business trip. He lived in California, but one of the companies he did work for was Magnavox, which at the time had a presence in Fort Wayne. So he had stopped off in Bloomington so we could say hi. We hadn't seen each other for many years. So he wrote my bio for me, which is still used in the agate in the USA Today. So it's the same bio all these years. Jeff Sagarin (00:15:56): So they started printing me on Tuesday, January 8 of 1985. On the front page that day and I got my editor of a couple years ago, he found an old physical copy of that paper and sent it to me and I thought that's pretty cool. And on the front page, they said, "Well, this would be the 50th birthday of Elvis Presley." I get, they did not have a banner headline at the top, "Turn to the sports and see Jeff Sagarin's debut." That was not what they did. It was all about Elvis Presley. And so people will tell me, "Wow! You got really lucky." Jeff Sagarin (00:16:30): Yeah, but I was in a position. I'd worked for 12 years since the fall of '72 to get in position to then get lucky. They told me I had some good recommendations from people. Rob Collie (00:16:42): Well, even that persistence to keep calling in the face of relatively discouraging feedback. So that conversation took place, and then two days later, you're in the paper. Jeff Sagarin (00:16:54): Well, yeah. He said, "Send us the ratings." They might have needed a time lag. So if I sent the ratings in on a Sunday night or Monday morning, they'd print them on Tuesday. They're not as instant. Now, I update every day on their website. For the paper, they take whatever the most recent ones they can access off their website, depending on I've sent it in, which is I always send them in early in the morning like when I get up. So they print on a Tuesday there'll be taking the ratings that they would have had in their hands Monday, which would be through Sunday's games. Rob Collie (00:17:26): That Tuesday, was that just college basketball? Jeff Sagarin (00:17:28): Then it was. Then in the fall of 85. They began using me for college football, not that they thought I was better or worse one way or the other than Thomas Jech who was a smart guy, he was a math professor at the time at Penn State. He just got tired of doing it. He had more important things to do. Serious, I don't mean that sarcastically. That was just like a fun hobby for him from what I understand. Rob Collie (00:17:50): I was going to ask you if you hadn't already gone and answered the question ahead of time. I was going to ask you well, what happened to the other guy? Did you go like all Tonya Harding on him or whatever? Did you take out your rival? No, sounds like Nancy Kerrigan just went ahead and retired. Although I hate to make you Tonya Harding in this analogy and I just realized I just Hardinged you. Jeff Sagarin (00:18:10): He was just evidently a really good math professor. It was just something he did for fun to do the ratings. Rob Collie (00:18:17): Opportunity and preparation right where they intersect. That's "luck". Jeff Sagarin (00:18:22): It would be as if Wally Pipp had retired and Lou Gehrig got to replace him in the analogy, Lou Gehrig gets the first base job but actually Wally Pipp in real life did not retire. He had the bad luck to get a cold or something or an injury and he never got back in the starting lineup after that. Rob Collie (00:18:38): What about Drew Bledsoe? I think he did get hurt. Did we ever see him again? Thomas LaRock (00:18:43): The very next season, he was in Buffalo and then he went to Dallas. Rob Collie (00:18:46): I don't remember this at all. Thomas LaRock (00:18:47): And not only that, but when he went to Dallas, he got hurt again and Tony Romo came on to take over. Rob Collie (00:18:53): Oh my god! So Drew Bledsoe is Wally Pipp X2. Thomas LaRock (00:18:58): Yeah, X2. Rob Collie (00:19:02): I just need to go find wherever Drew Bledsoe is right now and go get in line behind him. Thomas LaRock (00:19:08): He's making wine in Walla Walla, Washington. I know exactly where he is. Rob Collie (00:19:12): I'm about to inherit a vineyard gentlemen. Okay, so Wayne's already factored into this story. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:19:23): A little bit. Rob Collie (00:19:23): A bit part but an important one. We would call you Mr. Narrative Hook in the movie. Like you'd be the guy that's like, "Jeff, you've got to get a copy of USA Today and turn to page 10. You're going to be sick." Jeff Sagarin (00:19:37): Well, I was I'm glad Wayne told me to do it. If I'd never known that, who knows what I'd be doing right now? Rob Collie (00:19:44): Yeah. So you guys are longtime friends, right? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:19:47): Yeah. Jeff, should take this. Jeff Sagarin (00:19:49): September 1967 in the TV room at Ashdown Graduate's House across from the dorm we lived, because the graduate students there had rigged up, we call it a full screen TV that was actually quite huge. It's simply projected from a regular TV onto a maybe a 10 foot by 10 foot old fashioned movie projector screen. We'd go there to watch ballgames. Okay, because better than watching on a 10 inch diagonal black and white TV in the dorm. And it turned out we both had a love for baseball and football games. Thomas LaRock (00:20:26): So just to be clear, though, this was no ordinary school. This is MIT. Because this is what people at MIT would do is take some weird tech thing and go, "We can make this even better, make a big screen TV." Jeff Sagarin (00:20:38): We didn't know how to do it, which leads into Wayne's favorite story about our joint science escapades at MIT. If Wayne wants to start it off, you might like this. I was a junior and Wayne was a sophomore at the time. I'll set Wayne up for it, there was a requirement that MIT no matter what your major, one of the sort of distribution courses you had to take was a laboratory class. Why don't we let Wayne take the ball for a while on this? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:21:05): I'm not very mechanically inclined. I got a D in wood shop and a D in metal shop. Jeff's not very mechanically inclined either. We took this lab class and we were trying to figure out identifying a coin based on the sound waves it would produce under the Scylla scope. And so the first week, we couldn't get the machine to work. And the professor said, "Turn it on." And so we figured that step out and the next week, the machine didn't work. He said, "Plug it in." Jeff can take it from there. Jeff Sagarin (00:21:46): It didn't really fit the mathematical narrative exactly of what metals we knew were in the coin. But then I noticed, nowadays we'd probably figure out this a reason. If we multiplied our answers by something like 100 pi, we got the right numbers. So they were correctly proportional. So we just multiplied our answers by 100 pi and said, "As you can see, it's perfectly deducible." Rob Collie (00:22:14): There's a YouTube video that we should probably link that is crazy. It shows that two boxes on a frictionless surface a simulation and the number of times that they collide, when you slide them towards a wall together, when they're like at 10X ratio of mass, the number of times that they impact each other starts to become the digits of pi. Jeff Sagarin (00:22:34): Wow. Rob Collie (00:22:35): Before they separate. Jeff Sagarin (00:22:36): That's interesting. Rob Collie (00:22:36): It's just bizarre. And then they go through explaining like why it is pi and you understand it while the video is playing. And then the video ends and you've completely lost it. Jeff Sagarin (00:22:49): I'm just asking now, are they saying if you do that experiment an infinite amount of times, the average number of times they collide will be pi? Rob Collie (00:22:57): That's a really good question. I think it's like the number of collisions as you increase the ratios of the weight or something like that start to become. It's like you'll get 314 collisions, for instance, in a certain weight ratio, because that's the only three digits of pi that I remember. It's 3.14. It's a fascinating little watch. So the 100 pi thing, you said that, I'm like, "Yeah, that just... Of course it's 100 pi." Even boxes colliding on a frictionless surface do pi things apparently. Jeff Sagarin (00:23:29): Maybe it's a universal constant in everything we do. Rob Collie (00:23:29): You just don't expect pi to surface itself. It has nothing to do with waves, no wavelength, no arcs of circles, nothing like that. But that sneaky video, they do show you that it actually has something to do with circles and angles and stuff. Jeff Sagarin (00:23:44): Mutual friend of me and Wayne, this guy named Robin. He loves Fibonacci. And so every time I see a particular game end by a certain score, I'll just say, "Hey, Robin. Research the score of..." I think it was blooming to North against some other team. And he did. It turned out Bloomington North had won 155-34, which are the two adjacent Fibonacci, the two particular adjacent Fibonacci. Robin loves that stuff. You'll find a lot of that actually. It's hard to double Fibonacci a team though. That would be like 89-34. Rob Collie (00:24:18): I know about the Fibonacci sequence. But I can't pick Fibonacci sequence numbers out of the wild. Are you familiar with Scorigami? Jeff Sagarin (00:24:26): Who? I'd never heard of it obviously. Rob Collie (00:24:29): I think a Scorigami is a score in the NFL that's never happened. Jeff Sagarin (00:24:32): There was one like that about 10 years ago, 11-10, I believe. Pittsburgh was involved in the game or 12-11, something like that. Rob Collie (00:24:40): I think there was a Scorigami in last season. With scoring going up, the chances of Scorigami is increasing. There's just more variance at the higher end of the spectrum of numbers, right? Jeff Sagarin (00:24:50): I've always thought about this. In Canada, Canadian football, they have this extra rule that I think is kind of cool because it would probably make more scores happen. If a punter kicks the ball into the end zone, it can't roll there. Like if he kicks it on the fly into the end zone and the other team can't run it out, it's called a rouge and the kicking team gets one point for it. That's kind of cool. Because once you add the concept of scoring one point, you make a lot more scores more probable of happening. Rob Collie (00:25:21): Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. You can win 1-0. Thomas LaRock (00:25:25): So the end zone is also... It's 20 yards deep. So the field's longer, it's 110 yards. But the end zone's deeper and part of it is that it's too far to kick for a field goal. But you know what? If I can punt it into the end zone and if I get a cover team down there, we can get one point out. I'm in favor of it. I think that'd be great. Jeff Sagarin (00:25:43): I think you have to kick out on the fly into the end zone. It's not like if it rolls into it. Thomas LaRock (00:25:47): No, no, no. It's like a pop flop. Jeff Sagarin (00:25:50): Yeah. Okay. Rob Collie (00:25:50): If you punt it out of the end zone, is it also a point? Thomas LaRock (00:25:52): It's a touch back. No, touch back. Jeff Sagarin (00:25:54): That'd be too easy of a way to get a point. Rob Collie (00:25:57): You've had a 20 yard deep target to land in. In Canadian fantasy football, if there was such a thing, maybe there is, punters, you actually could have punters as a position because they can score points. That would be a really sad and un-fun way to play. Rob Collie (00:26:14): But so we're amateur sports analytics people here on the show. We're not professionals. We're probably not even very good at it. But that doesn't mean that we aren't fascinated by it. We're business analytics people here for sure. Business and sports, they might share some techniques, but it's just very, very, very different, the things that are valuable in the two spaces. I mean, they're sort of spiritually linked but they're not really tools or methods that provide value. Rob Collie (00:26:39): Not that you would give them. But we're not looking for any of your secrets here today. But you're not just writing for USA Today, there's a number of places where your skills are used these days, right? Jeff Sagarin (00:26:51): Well, not as much as that. But I want to make a favorable analogy for Wayne. In the world of sports analytics, whatever the phrases are, I consider myself to be maybe an experimental applied physicist. Wayne is an advanced theoretical physicist. I do the grunt work of collecting data and doing stuff with it. But Wayne has a large over-viewing of things. He's like a theoretical physicist. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:27:17): Jeff is too modest because he's experimented for years on the best parameters for his models. Rob Collie (00:27:27): It's again that 10-year, 20-year overnight success type of thing. You've just got to keep grinding at it. Do the two of you collaborate at all? Jeff Sagarin (00:27:35): Well, we did on two things, the Hoops computer game and Win Val. I forgot. How could I forget? It was actually my favorite thing that we did even though we've made no money doing the randomization using Game Theory of play calling for football. And we based it actually and it turned out that I got great numerical results that jive with empirical stuff that Virgil Carter had gotten and our economist, named Romer, had gotten and we had more detailed results than them. Jeff Sagarin (00:28:06): But in the areas that we intersected, we had the same as them. We used a game called Pro Quarterback and we modeled it. We had actually, a fellow, I wasn't a professor but a fellow professor of Wayne's, a great guy, just a great guy named Vic Cabot, who wrote a particular routine to insert the FORTRAN program that solved that particular linear programming problem that would constantly reoccur or else we couldn't do it. That was the favorite thing and we got to show it once to Sam White, who we really liked. And White said, "I like this guy. I may have played this particular game," we told him what we based it on, "when I was a teenager." Jeff Sagarin (00:28:46): He said, "I know exactly what you want to do." You don't make the same call in the same situation all the time. You have a random, but there's an optimal mix Game Theory, as you probably know for both offense and defense. White said, "The problem is this is my first year here. It was the summer of '83." And he said, "I don't really have the security." Said, "Imagine it's third and one, we're on our own 15 yard line. And it's third and one. And the random number generator says, 'Throw the bomb on this play with a 10% chance of calling up but it'll still be in the mix. And it happens to come up.'" Jeff Sagarin (00:29:23): He said, "It was my eight year here. I used to play these games myself. I know exactly." But then he patted his hip. He said, "It's mine on the line this first year." He said, "It's kind of nerve wracking to do that when you're a rookie coach somewhere, to call the bomb when it's third and one on your own 15. If it's incomplete, you'll be booed out of the stadium." Rob Collie (00:29:46): Yeah, I mean, it's similar to there's the general reluctance in coaches for so long to go for it on fourth and one. When the analytics were very, very, very clear that this was a plus expected value, +EV, move to go for it on fourth and one. But the thing is, you've got to consider the bigger picture. Right? The incentives, the coaches number one goal is actually don't get fired. Jeff Sagarin (00:30:14): You were right. That's what White was telling us. Rob Collie (00:30:14): Yeah. Winning a Super Bowl is a great thing to do. Because it helps you not get fired. It's actually weird. Like, if your goal is to win as many games as possible, yes, go for it on fourth and one. But if your goal is to not get fired, maybe. So it takes a bit more courage even to follow the numbers. And for good reason, because the incentives aren't really aligned the way that we think they are when you first glance at a situation. Jeff Sagarin (00:30:41): Well, there's a human factor that there's no way unless you're making a guess how to take it into account. It may be demoralizing to your defense if you go for it on fourth and one and you're on your own 15. I've seen the numbers, we used to do this. It's a good mathematical move to go for it. Because you could say, "Well, if you're forced to punt, the other team is going to start on the 50. So what's so good about that? But psychologically, your defense may be kind of pissed off and demoralized when they have to come out on the field and defend from their own 15 after you've not made it and the numbers don't take that into account. Rob Collie (00:31:19): Again, it's that judgment thing. Like the coach hung out to dry. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:31:22): Can I say a word about Vic Cabot, that Jeff mentioned? Jeff Sagarin (00:31:26): Yeah, He's great. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:31:27): Yeah. So Vic was the greatest guy any of us in the business school ever knew. He was a fantastic person. He died of throat cancer in 1994, actually 27 years ago this week or last week. Jeff Sagarin (00:31:43): Last week. It was right around Labor Day. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:31:46): Right. But I want to mention, basically, when he died, his daughter was working in the NYU housing office. After he died, she wrote a little book called The Princess Diaries. She's worth how many millions of dollars now? But he never got to see it. Jeff Sagarin (00:32:06): He had a son, a big kid named Matt Cabot, who played at Bloomington South High School. I got a nice story about Matthew. I believe the last time I know of him, he was a state trooper in the state of Colorado. I used to tell him when I was still young enough and Spry enough, we'd play a little pickup or something. I'd say, "Matthew, forget about points. The most important thing, a real man gets rebounds." Jeff Sagarin (00:32:32): They played in the semi state is when it was just one class. In '88, me and Wayne and a couple of Wayne's professor buddies, we all... Of course, Vic would have been there but we didn't go in the same car. It was me, Wayne and maybe [inaudible 00:32:48] and somebody else, Wayne? Jeff Sagarin (00:32:49): They played against Chandler Thompson's great team from Muncie Central. In the first three minutes, Chris Lawson, who was the star of the team went up for his patented turn around jumper from six feet away in the lane and Chandler Thompson spiked it like a volleyball and on the run of Muncie Central player took it with no one near him and laid it in and the game essentially ended but Matt Cabot had the game of his life. Jeff Sagarin (00:33:21): I think he may have led the game of anyone, the most rebounds in the game. I compliment him. He was proud of that. And he's played, he said many a pickup game with Chandler Thompson, he said the greatest jumper he's ever been on the court within his entire life. You guys look up because I don't know if you know who Chandler Thompson. Is he played at Ball State. Look up on YouTube his put back dunk against UNLV in the 90 tournaments, the year UNLV won it at all. Look up Chandler Thompson's put back dunk. Rob Collie (00:33:52): Yeah, I was just getting into basketball then, I think. Like in the Loyola Marymount days. Yeah, Jerry Tarkanian. Does college basketball have the same amount of personalities it used to like in the coaching figures. I kind of doubt that it does. Rob Collie (00:34:06): With Tark gone, and of course, Bob Knight, it'll be hard to replace personalities like that. I don't know. I don't really watch college basketball anymore, so I wouldn't really know. But I get invited into those pick'em pools for the tournament March Madness every year and I never had the stamina to fill them out. And they offer those sheets where they'll fill it out for you. But why would I do that? Jeff Sagarin (00:34:28): I've got to tell you a story involving Wayne and I. Rob Collie (00:34:31): Okay. Jeff Sagarin (00:34:31): In the 80 tournament, I had gotten a program running that would to simulate the tournament if you fed in the power ratings. It understood who'd play who and you simulate it a zillion times, come up with the odds. So going into the tournament, we had Purdue maybe the true odds against him should have been let's say, I'll make it up seven to one. Purdue and Iowa, they had Ronnie Lester, I remember. Jeff Sagarin (00:34:57): The true odds against them should have been about 7-1. The bookmakers were giving odds of 40-1. So Wayne and I looked at each other and said, "That seems like a big edge." In theory, well, odds are still against them. Let's bet $25 apiece on both Purdue and Iowa. The two of them made the final four. Jeff Sagarin (00:35:20): In Indianapolis, I'll put it this way, their consolation game gave us no consolation. Rob Collie (00:35:30): Man. Jeff Sagarin (00:35:31): And then one of the games, Joe Barry Carroll of Purdue, they're down by one they UCLA. I'm sure he was being contested. I don't mean he was all by himself. It's always easy for the fan who can't play to mock the player. I don't mean... He was being fiercely contested by UCLA. The net result was he missed with fierce contesting one foot layup that would have won the game for Purdue, that would have put them into the championship game and Iowa could have beaten Louisville, except their best player, Ronnie Lester had to leave the game because he had aggravated a bad knee injury that he just couldn't play well on. Jeff Sagarin (00:36:11): But as I said, no consolation, right Wayne? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:36:14): Right. Jeff Sagarin (00:36:15): That was the next to the last year they ever had a consolation game. The last one was in '81 between LSU and Virginia. Rob Collie (00:36:23): Was it the '81 tournament that you said that you liked Indiana to win it? Jeff Sagarin (00:36:28): Wait, I'm going to show you how you get punished for hubris. I learned my lesson. The next year in '82, I had gotten a lot of notoriety, good kind of notoriety for having them to win in '81. People thought, "Wow! This is like the Oracle." So now as the tournament's about to begin in '82, I started getting a lot of calls, which I never used to do like from the media, "Who do you got Jeff?" I said confidently, "Oregon State." I had them number one, I think they'd only lost one game the whole year and they had a guy named Charlie Sitting, a 6'8 guy who was there all American forward. Jeff Sagarin (00:37:06): He was the star and I was pretty confident and to be honest, probably obnoxious when I'd be talking to the press. So they make the regional final against Georgetown and it was being held out west. I'm sort of confidently waiting for the game to be played and I'm sure there'll be advancing to the final four. And they were playing against freshmen, Patrick Ewing. Jeff Sagarin (00:37:29): In the first 10 seconds of the game, maybe you can find the video, there was a lob pass into Ewing, his back was to the basket, he's like three feet from the basket without even looking, he dunks backwards over his head over Charlie Sitton. And you should see the expression on Charlie Sitton's face. I said, "Oh my god! This game is over." The final score was 68-43 in Georgetown's favor. It was a massacre. It taught me the lesson, never be cocky, at least in public because you get slapped down, you get slapped down when you do that. Rob Collie (00:38:05): I don't want to get into this yet again on this show. But you should call up Nate Silver and maybe talk to him a little bit about the same sort of thing. Makes very big public calls that haven't been necessarily so great lately. Just for everyone's benefit, because even though I'd live in the state of Indiana, I didn't grow up here. Let's just be clear. Who won the NCAA tournament in 1981? Jeff Sagarin (00:38:29): Indiana. Rob Collie (00:38:30): Okay. All right, so there you go. Right. Jeff Sagarin (00:38:33): But who didn't win it in 1982? Oregon State. Rob Collie (00:38:38): Yeah. Did you see The Hunt for Red October where Jack Ryan's character, there's a point where he guesses. He says, "Ramy, as always, goes to port in the bottom half of the hour with his crazy Ivan maneuvers and he turns out to be right." And that's how he ends up getting the captain of the American sub to trust him as Jack Ryan knew this Captain so well, even knew which direction he would turn in the crazy Ivan. But it turns out he was just bluffing. He knew he needed a break and it was 50/50. Rob Collie (00:39:08): So it's a good thing that they were talking to you in the Indiana year, originally. Not the Oregon State year. That wouldn't be a good first impression. If you had to have it go one way or the other in those two years, the order in which it happened was the right order. Jeff Sagarin (00:39:22): Yeah, nobody would have listened to me. They would have said, "You got lucky." They said, "You still were terrible in the Oregon State year." Rob Collie (00:39:28): But you just pick the 10th rated team and be right. The chances of that being just luck are pretty low. I like it. That's a good story. So the two of you have never collaborated like on the Mark Cuban stuff? On the Mavs or any of that? Jeff Sagarin (00:39:43): We've done three things together. The Hoops computer game, which we did from '86-'95. And then we did the Game Theory thing for football, but we never got a client. But we did get White to kind of follow it. There's an interesting anecdote, I won't I mentioned the guy who kind of screwed it up. But he assigned a particular grad assistant to fill and we needed a matrix filled in each week with a bunch of numbers with regarding various things like turnovers. Jeff Sagarin (00:40:13): If play A is called against defense B, what would happen type of thing? The grad assistant hated doing it. And one week, he gave us numbers such that the computer came back with when Indiana had the ball, it should quick kick on first down every time it got the ball. We figured it out what was going on, the guy had given Indiana a 15% chance of a turnover, no matter what play they called in any situation against any defense. Jeff Sagarin (00:40:44): So the computer correctly surmised it were better to punt the ball. This is like playing Russian roulette with the ball. Let's just kick it away. So we ended up losing the game in real life 10-0. White told us then when we next saw him, we used to see him on Monday or Tuesday mornings, real early in the day, like seven o'clock, but that's when you could catch him. And he kind of looked at us and said, "You know what? We couldn't have done any worse said had we kicked [inaudible 00:41:14]." Rob Collie (00:41:13): That's nice. Jeff Sagarin (00:41:14): And then we did Mark Cuban. That was the last thing. We did that with Cuban from basically 2000-2011 with a couple of random projects in the summer for him, but really on a day to day basis during a season from 2000-2011. Rob Collie (00:41:30): And during that era is when I met Wayne at Microsoft. That was very much an active, ongoing project when Wayne was there in Redmond a couple of times that we crossed paths. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:41:43): And we worked for the Knicks one year, and they won 54 games. Jeff Sagarin (00:41:47): Here with Glen Grunwald. So they won more games than they'd ever won in a whole bunch of years. And like three weeks before the season starts or so in mid September, the next fire, Glen Grunwald. Let's put it this way, it didn't bother us that the Knicks never made the playoffs again until this past season. Rob Collie (00:42:10): That's great. You were doing, was it lineup optimization for those teams? Jeff Sagarin (00:42:15): Wayne knows more about this than I do. Because I would create the raw data, well, I call it output, but it needed refinement. That was Wayne's department. So you do all the talking now, Wayne. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:42:26): Yeah. Jeff wrote an amazing FORTRAN program. So basically, Jeff rated teams and we figured out we could rate players based on how the score of the game moved during the game. We could evaluate lineups and figure out head to head how certain players did against each other. Now, every team does this stuff and ESPN has Real Plus-Minus and Nate Silver has Raptor. But we started this. Jeff Sagarin (00:42:58): I mean, everybody years ago knew about Plus-Minus. Well, intuitively, let's say you're a gym rat, you first come to a gym, you don't know anyone there and you start getting in the crowd of guys that show up every afternoon to play pickup. You start sensing, you don't even have to know their names. Hey, when that guy is on the court, no matter who his teammates are, they seem to win. Jeff Sagarin (00:43:20): Or when this guy's on the court, they always seem to lose. Intuitively since it matters, who's on the court with you and who your opponents are. Like to make an example for Rob, let's say you happen to be in a pickup game. You've snuck into Pauley Pavilion during the summer and you end up with like four NBA current playing professionals on your team and let's say an aging Michael Jordan now shows up. He ends up with four guys who are graduate students in philosophy because they have to exercise. You're going to have a better plus-minus than Michael Jordan. But when you take into account who your teammates were and who's his were, if you knew enough about the players, he'd have a better rating than you, new Michael Jordan would. Jeff Sagarin (00:44:08): But you'd have a better raw plus-minus than he would. You have to know who the people on the court were. That was Wayne's insight. Tell them how it all started, how you met ran into Mark Cuban, Wayne, when you were in Dallas? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:44:20): Well, Mark was in my class in 1981, statistics class and I guess the year 1999, we went to a Pacers Maverick game in Dallas. Jeff Sagarin (00:44:31): March of 2000. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:44:33): March of 2000, because our son really liked the Pacers. Mark saw me in the stands. He said, "I remember you from class and I remember you for being on Jeopardy." He had just bought the team. And he said, "If you can do anything to help the Mavericks, let me know." And then I was swimming in the pool one day and I said, "If Jeff rates teams, we should rate players." And so we worked on this and Jeff wrote this amazing FORTRAN program, which I'm sure he could not rewrite today. Jeff Sagarin (00:45:04): Oh, God. Well, I was motivated then. Willingness to work hard for many hours at a time, for days at a time to get something to work when you could use the money that would result from it. I don't have that in me anymore. I'm amazed when I look at the source code. I say, "Man, I couldn't do that now." I like to think I could. Necessity is the mother of invention. Rob Collie (00:45:28): I've many, many, many times said and this is still true to this day, like a previous version of me that made something amazing like built a model or something like that, I look back and go, "Whoo, I was really smart back then." Well, at the same time I know I'm improving. I know that I'm more capable today than I was a year ago. Even just accrued wisdom makes a big difference. When you really get lasered in on something and are very, very focused on it, you're suddenly able to execute at just a higher level than what you're typically used to. Jeff Sagarin (00:46:01): As time went on, we realized what Cuban wanted and other teams like the next would want. Nobody really wanted to wade through the monster set of files that the FORTRAN would create. I call that the raw output that nobody wanted to read, but it was needed. Wayne wrote these amazing routines in Excel that became understandable and usable by the clients. Jeff Sagarin (00:46:26): The way Wayne wrote the Excel, they could basically say, "Tell us what happens when these three guys are in the lineup, but these two guys are not in the lineup." It was amazing the stuff that he wrote. Wayne doesn't give himself the credit that otherwise after a while, nobody would have wanted what we were doing because what I did was this sort of monstrous and to some extent boring. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:46:48): This is what Rob's company does basically. They try and distill data into understandable form that basically helps the company make decisions. Rob Collie (00:46:58): It is a heck of a discipline, right? Because if you have the technical and sort of mental skills to execute on something that's that complex, and it starts down in the weeds and just raw inputs, it's actually really, really, really easy to hand it off in a form that isn't yet quite actionable for the intended audience. It's really fascinating to you, the person that created it. Rob Collie (00:47:23): It's not digestible or actionable yet for the consumer crowd, whoever the target consumer is. I've been there. I've handed off a lot of things back in the day and said, "The professional equivalent of..." And it turned out to not be... It turned out to be, "Go back and actually make it useful, Rob." So I'm familiar with that. For sure. I think I've gotten better at that over the years. As a journey, you're never really complete with. Something I wanted to throw in here before I forget, which is, Jeff, you have an amazing command of certain dates. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:47:56): Oh, yeah. Jeff Sagarin (00:47:57): Give me some date that you know the answer about what day of the week it was, and I'll tell you, but I'll tell you how I did it. Rob Collie (00:48:04): Okay, how about June 6, 1974? Jeff Sagarin (00:48:08): That'd be a Thursday. Rob Collie (00:48:10): Holy cow. Okay. How do you do that? Jeff Sagarin (00:48:11): June 11th of 1974 would be a Tuesday, so five days earlier would be a Thursday. Rob Collie (00:48:19): How do you know June 11? Jeff Sagarin (00:48:19): I just do. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:48:23): It's his birthday. Rob Collie (00:48:24): No, it's not. He wasn't born in '74. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:48:27): No, but June 11th. Jeff Sagarin (00:48:29): I happen to know that June 11 was a Tuesday in 1974, that's all. Rob Collie (00:48:34): I'm still sitting here waiting what passes for an explanation. Is one coming? Jeff Sagarin (00:48:39): I'll tell you another way I could have done it, but I didn't. In 1963, John Kennedy gave his famous speech in Berlin, Ich bin ein Berliner, on Wednesday, June 26th. That means that three weeks earlier was June 5, the Wednesday. So Thursday would have been June 6th. You're going to say, "Well, why is that relevant?" Well, 1963 is congruent to 1974 days of the week was. Rob Collie (00:49:07): Okay. This is really, really impressive. Jeff, you seem so normal up until now. Thomas LaRock (00:49:16): You want throw him off? Just ask for any date before 1759? Jeff Sagarin (00:49:20): No, I can do that. It'll take me a little longer though. Thomas LaRock (00:49:22): Because once they switch from Gregorian- Jeff Sagarin (00:49:25): No, well, I'll give it a Gregorian style, all right. I'm assuming that it's a Gregorian date. The calendar totally, totally repeats every possible cycle every 400 years. For example, if you happen to say, "What was September 10, of 1621?" I would quickly say, "It's a Friday." Because 1621 is exactly the same as 2021 says. Rob Collie (00:49:52): Does this translate into other domains as well? Do you have sort of other things that you can sort of get this quick, intuitive mastery over or is it very, very specific to this date arithmetic? Jeff Sagarin (00:50:02): Probably specific. In other words, I think Wayne's a bit quicker than me. I'm certain does mental arithmetic stuff, but to put everybody in their place, I don't think you ever met him, Wayne. Remember the soccer player, John Swan? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:50:14): Yeah. Jeff Sagarin (00:50:15): He had a friend from high school, they went to Brownsburg High School. I forgot the kid's name. He was like a regular student at IU. He was not a well scholar, but he was a smart kid. I'd say he was slightly faster than me at most mental arithmetic things. So you should never get cocky and think that other people, "Oh, they don't have the pedigree." Some people are really good at stuff you don't expect them to be good at, really good. This kid was really good. Rob Collie (00:50:45): As humans, we need to hyper simplify things in order to have a mental model we can use to navigate a very, very complicated world. That's a bit of a strength. But it's also a weakness in many ways. We tend to try to reduce intelligence down to this single linear number line, when it's really like a vast multi dimensional coordinate space. There are so many dimensions of intelligence. Rob Collie (00:51:11): I grew up with the trope in my head that athletes weren't very bright. Until the first time that I had to try to run a pick and roll versus pick and pop. I discovered that my brain has a clock speed that's too slow to run the pick and roll versus pick and pop. It's not that I'm not smart enough to know if this, than that. I can't process it fast enough to react. You look at like an NFL receiver or an NFL linebacker or whatever, has to process on every single snap. Rob Collie (00:51:45): It's amazing how much information they have the processor. Set aside the physical skill that they have, which I also don't have and never did. On top of that, I don't have the brain at all to do these sorts of things. It's crazy. Jeff Sagarin (00:52:00): With the first few years, I was in Bloomington from, let's say, '77 to '81, I needed the money, so I tutored for the athletic department. They tutored math. And I remember once I was given an assignment, it was a defensive end, real nice kid. He was having trouble with the kind of math we would find really easy. But you could tell he had a mental block. These guys had had bad experiences and they just, "I can't do this. I can't do this." Jeff Sagarin (00:52:25): I asked this defensive end, "Tell me what happens when the ball snap, what do you have to do?" I said, "In real time, you're being physically pulverized, the other guy's putting a forearm or more right into your face. And your brain has to be checking about five different things going on in the backfield, other linemen." I said, "What you're doing with somebody else trying to hurt you physically is much more intellectually difficult, at least to my mind than this problem in the book in front of you and the book is not punching you in the face." Jeff Sagarin (00:52:57): He relaxed and he can do the problems in the room. I'd make sure. I picked not a problem that I had solved. I'd give him another one that I hadn't solved and he could do it. I realized, my God, what these guys they're doing takes actually very quick reacting brainpower and my own personal experience in elementary school, let's say in sixth grade after school, we'd be playing street football, just touch football. When I'd be quarterback, I'd start running towards the line of scrimmage. Jeff Sagarin (00:53:26): If the other team came after me, they'd leave a receiver wide open. I said, "This is easy." So I throw for touchdown. Well, in seventh grade, we go to junior high. We have squads in gym class, and on a particular day, I got to be quarterback. Now, instead of guys sort of leisurely counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi, they are pouring in. It's not that you're going to get hurt, but you're going to get tagged and the play would be over. It says touch football, and I'd be frantically looking for receivers to get open. Let's just say it was not a good experience. I realized there's a lot more to be in quarterback than playing in the street. It's so simple. Jeff Sagarin (00:54:08): They come after you and they leave the receivers wide open. That's what evidently sets apart. Let's say the Tom Brady's from the guys who don't even make it after one year in the NFL. If you gave them a contest throwing the ball, seeing who could throw it through a tire at 50 yards, maybe the young kid is better than Tom Brady but his brain can't process what's happening on the field fast enough. Thomas LaRock (00:54:32): As someone who likes to you know, test things thoroughly, that student of yours who was having trouble on the test, you said the book wasn't hitting him physically. Did you try possibly? Jeff Sagarin (00:54:45): I should have shoved it in his face. Thomas LaRock (00:54:49): Physically, just [crosstalk 00:54:50]. Rob Collie (00:54:50): Just throw things at him. Yeah. Thomas LaRock (00:54:52): Throw an eraser, a piece of chalk. Just something. Jeff Sagarin (00:54:56): I'll tell you now, I don't want to name him. He's a real nice guy. I'll tell you a funny anecdote about him. I had hurt my knuckle in a pickup basketball game. I had a cast on it and I was talking to my friend. And he had just missed making a pro football team the previous summer and he was on the last cut. He'd made it to the final four guys. Jeff Sagarin (00:55:18): He was trying to become a linebacker I think. They told him, "You're just not mean enough." That was in my mind. I thought, "Well, I don't know about that." He said, "Yeah, I had the same kind of fractured knuckle you got." I said, "How'd you get it?" "Pick up [inaudible 00:55:32]. Punching a guy in the face." But he wasn't mean enough for the NFL. And I heard a story from a friend of mine who I witnessed it, this guy was at one point working security at a local holiday inn that would have these dances. Jeff Sagarin (00:55:47): There was some guy who was like from the Hells Angels who was causing trouble. He's a big guy, 6'5, 300 whatever. And he actually got into an argument with my friend who was the security guy. Angel guy throws a punch at this guy who's not mean enough for the NFL. With one punch the Jeff Sagarin tutoree knocked the Hell's Angels guy flat unconscious. He was a comatose on the floor. But he wasn't mean enough for the NFL. Rob Collie (00:56:17): Tom if I told my plus minus story about my 1992 dream team on this show, I think maybe I have. I don't remember. Thomas LaRock (00:56:24): You might have but this seems like a perfect episode for that. Rob Collie (00:56:27): I think Jeff and Wayne, if I have told it before, it was probably with Wayne. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:56:31): I don't remember. Rob Collie (00:56:32): Perfect. It'll be new to everyone that matters. Tom remembers. So, in 1992, the Orlando Magic were a recent expansion team in the NBA. Sometime in that summer, the same summer where the 1992 Dream Team Olympic team went and dominated, there was a friend of our family who ran a like a luxury automotive accessories store downtown and he basically hit the jackpot. He'd been there forever. There was like right next to like the magic practice facility. Rob Collie (00:57:09): And so all the magic players started frequenting his shop. That was where they tricked out all their cars and added all the... So his business was just booming as a result of magic coming to town. I don't know this guy ever had ever been necessarily terribly athletic at any point in his life. He had this bright idea to assemble a YMCA team that would play in the local YMCA league in Orlando, the city league. Rob Collie (00:57:35): He had secured the commitment of multiple magic players to be on our team as well as like Jack Givens, who was the radio commentator for The Magic and had been a longtime NBA star with his loaded team. And then it was like, this guy, we'll call this guy Bill. It's not his real name. So it was Bill and the NBA players and me and my dad, a couple of younger guys that actually I didn't know, but were pretty good but they weren't even like college level players. Rob Collie (00:58:07): And so we signed up for the A league, the most competitive league that Orlando had to offer. And then none of the NBA players ever showed up. I said never, but they did show up one time. But we were getting blown out. Some of the people who were playing against us were clearly ex college players. We couldn't even get the ball across half court. Jeff Sagarin (00:58:33): Wayne, does this sound familiar to you? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:58:35): Yes, tell this story. Jeff Sagarin (00:58:38): Wayne, when he was a grad student at Yale, and I'm living in the White Irish neighborhood called Dorchester in Boston, I was young and spry. At that time, I would think I could play. Wayne as a grad student at Yale had entered a team with a really intimidating name of administration science in the New Haven City League, which was played I believe at Hill House high school at night. So Wayne said, "Hey Jeff, why don't you take a Greyhound bus down. We're going to play against this team called the New Haven All Stars. It ought to be interesting." Rob Collie (00:59:14): Wayne's voice in that story sound a little bit like the guy at USA Today for a moment. It was the same voice, the cigar chomping. Anyway, continue. Jeff Sagarin (00:59:25): They edged this out 75-31. I thought I was lined up against the guy... I thought it was Paul Silas who was may be sort of having a bus man's holiday playing for the New Haven all-stars. So a couple weeks later, Paul Silas was my favorite player on the Celtics. He could rebound, that's all I could do. I was pitiful at anything else. But I worked at that and I was pretty strong and I worked at jumping, etc. Jeff Sagarin (00:59:53): So a few weeks later, Wayne calls me up and says, "Hey Jeff, we're playing the New Haven All-Stars again. Why don't you come down again and we'll get revenge against them this time?" Let's just say it didn't work out that way. And I remember one time I had Paul Silas completely boxed out. It was perfect textbook and I could jump. If my hands were maybe at rim level and I could see a pair of pants a foot over mine from behind, he didn't tell me and he got the rebound and I'm at rim level. Jeff Sagarin (01:00:24): We were edged out by a score so monstrous, I won't repeat it here. I'm not a guard at all. But I ended up with the ball... They full court pressed the whole game. Rob Collie (01:00:34): Of course, once they figure out- Jeff Sagarin (01:00:36): That we can't play and I'm not even a guard. It was ludicrous. My four teammates left me in terror. They just said, "We're going down court." So I'm all alone, they have four guys on me and my computer like my thought, "Well, they've got four guys on me. That must mean my four teammates are being guarded by one guy down court. This should be easy." I look, I look. They didn't steal the ball out of my hands or nothing. I'm still holding on to it. They're pecking away but they didn't foul me. I give them credit for that. I was like, "Where the hell are my teammates?" Jeff Sagarin (01:01:08): They were in terror hiding in single file behind the one guy and I basically... I don't care if you bleeping or not, I said, "Fuck it." And I just threw the ball. Good two overhand pass, long pass. I had my four teammates down there and they had one guy and you can guess who got the ball. After the game I asked them, I said, "You guys seem fairly good. Are you anybody?" The guy said, "Yeah, we're the former Fairfield varsity we were in the NIT about two years ago." Jeff Sagarin (01:01:39): I looked it up once. Fairfield did make the NIT, I think in '72. And this took place in like February of '74. It taught me a lesson because I looked up what my computer rating for Fairfield would have been compared that to, let's say, UCLA and NC State and figured at a minimum, we'd be at least a 100-200 point underdog against them in a real game, but it would have been worse because we would never get the ball pass mid-court. Rob Collie (01:02:10): Yeah, I mean, those games that I'm talking about in that YMCA League, I mean, the scores were far worse. We were losing like 130-11. Jeff Sagarin (01:02:19): Hey, good that's worse than New Haven all-stars beat us but not quite that bad. Rob Collie (01:02:24): I remember one time actually managing to get the ball across half court and pulling up for a three-point shot off of the break. And then having the guy that had assembled the team, take me aside at the next time out and tell me that I needed to pass that. I'm just like, "No. You got us into this embarrassment. If I get to the point where like, there's actually a shot we can take like a shot, we could take a shot. I'm not going to dump it off to you." Thomas LaRock (01:02:57): Not just a shot, but the shot of gold. Rob Collie (01:03:00): The one time we did get those guys to show up, we were still kind of losing because those guys didn't want to get hurt. It didn't make any sense for them to be there. There was no upside for them to be in this game. I'm sure that they just sort of been guilted into showing up. But then this Christian Laettner lookalike on the other team. He was as big as Laettner. Rob Collie (01:03:25): This is the kind of teams we were playing against. There was a long rebound and that Laettner lookalike got that long rebound and basically launched from the free throw line and dunked over Terry Catledge, the power forward for the Magic at the time. And at that moment, Terry Catledge scored the next 45 points in the game himself. That was all it was. Rob Collie (01:03:50): He'd just be standing there waiting for me to inbound the ball to him, he would take it coast to coast and score. He'd backpedal on defense and he would somehow steal the ball and he'd go down and score again. He just sent a message. And if that guy hadn't dunked over Catledge, we would have never seen what Catledge was capable of. So remember, this is a team th

Today we are talking to Tina, Kristen, and Jeff from Fairfield Medical Center's sterile processing department. In this episode, we discuss the interesting realm of SPD. We highlight what they handle on a daily basis, sterile processing's impact on patients, and the subsequent achievement of surgeon satisfaction.