Episode Transcript
Chris Rodell [00:00:00]:
Today, we're gonna talk about the big pecker that's been in the news, and we're gonna talk about Fred and Arnold and if they ever really got along. Hi. I'm Chris Rodell. I've written stories and features for just about every magazine or publication in America. This is the use all the crayons podcast where I will share those colorful stories with you. You know it's a surreal week in national news when a Michigan radio station calls me to inquire on air if if I've ever worked for a real Pecker. I told the host that he had it backward.
Chris Rodell [00:00:30]:
I had a Pecker that worked for me. He clarified. Did I ever work for David Pecker, the owner of the National Enquire from 1999 to 2020? Pecker was this week at the center of the Trump hush money trial in New York City. I guess I did some work under his regime, but I'd pretty much run my course of fun with the nation's most notorious tabloid by then. I'd done about 1,000 stories for The Inquirer. It was a case of, and I'll try and make this the last Pecker pun, Pecker coming as I was going. Of course, Trump was in bed with the Inquirer long before Pecker rose to the top of the staff. How do I know? I talked to him about 4 or 5 times when I was at the Inquirer headquarters in the early 19 nineties.
Chris Rodell [00:01:06]:
I remember word for word our entire conversation. Trump. This is Donald Trump calling for Wayne Castleman. Me. Hold, please. I think we had that exact same conversation about 4 or 5 times over the next week. I remember thinking each time how ironic it was for me to be transferring a call from a man who lived in a castle, Mar a Lago, to a reporter named Castleman. I'm chagrined at what the Inquirer has become.
Chris Rodell [00:01:29]:
It used to be wholly nonpartisan. It was just about the story. 1 week, they would have a front page story about the Democratic VP nominee John Edwards' love child, the Nexon expose of Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction, and how it influenced the GOP policy. And now it turns out they've been in the tank for Trump, and I don't like it one bit. It sucks. It blows. I guess that's what happens when you let a pecker make all the big decisions. To prove I'm never going to forsake my storytelling ethos, I'm going to conclude today's podcast with a controversial story that disparages Latrobe's 2 great icons, and neither of them is Buck Pawlowski.
Buck Pawlosky [00:02:06]:
Oh, I see. I'm Buck Pawlowski, owner of 10 Lizzy here in Youngstown, PA. I put up with Chris Rodell every day. Three points of, Colorful living. Colorful living. Point out the medical irony anytime doctors diagnose bald men with hairline fractures. Number 2, see a movie solo. It feels very liberating.
Buck Pawlosky [00:02:30]:
And the third thing, predict the next drink sensation will be bottled gravy.
Chris Rodell [00:02:34]:
When's a Tin Lizzie gonna start serving bottled gravy?
Buck Pawlosky [00:02:37]:
Probably never Rodell, Probably never. We serve everything else.
Chris Rodell [00:02:43]:
Thank you. You and I probably share a lot of similarities. We're a couple of carbon based life forms who rely on oxygen for necessary respiration. We have a biological need for things like pizza about once every 4 days. But there's one realm in which we're not at all alike. You don't spend much time thinking about how much you might have in common with the planet Pluto. You probably don't even give it much thought over whether it's even a planet or not. I'm the exact opposite.
Chris Rodell [00:03:15]:
I think about Pluto all the time. I one day dream of walking into a saloon strewn with evidence an angry brawl had just occurred. Busted pool cues, broken glass, pools of blood mingling with peanut shells and sawdust on the floor. I'll step over the bodies and ask the bartender what happened. Well, old Bert said Pluto wasn't a planet and he just wouldn't let it go. Hank wouldn't have any of it and it was on. My kind of bar. I've been comparing myself to Pluto for about 5 years now.
Chris Rodell [00:03:42]:
sIt's all because of Arnold Palmer, who to my knowledge had never golfed on Pluto. Neither have I, of course, but it wouldn't surprise me if one day future explorers find some of my old Titleist on the planet's surface from back when I couldn't control the driver. A visiting friend observed how lucky I was to be a good friend of Arnold Palmer, to be in his inner circle. Not true, I'd say. I was indeed fortunate to have chummy access to him, but I wouldn't presume to say I was a close friend or part of his inner circle. But I was like Pluto, and many scientists argue whether or not Pluto is even a planet. So I began to wonder about Pluto often. How much do we have in common? Did you know Pluto has 5 moons and they went 1,000,000,000 of years without being seen? If you have moons to meet right there, boom, you're a planet.
Chris Rodell [00:04:25]:
And it's moons that have names. Charon, Styx, Nyx, Hydra, and Kerberos. We have one lousy moon, and it's named Moon. What gives? It's like having a dog and naming it dog. I have one moon, and it gets seen in public about once every 12 years or so, or whenever I have an occasion to don a kilt. It takes Pluto 248 Earth years to make one orbit around the sun. 248 years. Just imagine what a Plutonian calendar would look like.
Chris Rodell [00:04:52]:
Let's not even think about adding the chaos of things like leap year or daylight savings time. It's difficult for our feeble minds to fathom such stellar distance. For instance, the light leaving the sun right now won't hit earth for 8 minutes. That same light won't reach Pluto for another 5 hours and 42 minutes. It would take a solar powered golf cart traveling 36,400 miles per hour, about 9.5 years to reach Pluto. 9.7 years if you stopped for pee breaks. It's just a long way off, and there's no conceivable reason to go there. I say that with the understanding that, mark my words, one day there will be a souvenir stand there, and the top seller will be one that says, my grandparents went to Kerberos, and all I got was this lousy t shirt.
Chris Rodell [00:05:36]:
I guess I feel a kinship because of intangibles. Takes Pluto nearly 250 years to orbit the sun. Takes me nearly that long to get out of bed on a Sunday. Pluto struggles for recognition among its larger, gassier neighbors. And that is where the similarities end. No one's gassier than I. But if you've listened this far, you probably already knew that.
John Jamison [00:05:59]:
John Jamison, retired sheep farmer, Crabtree, Pennsylvania.
Chris Rodell [00:06:07]:
Why is Jamison Lamb the best lamb in the world?
John Jamison [00:06:11]:
It's the best lamb in the world because we have the best grass in the world. Tony Bourdain said we started all of the change in the food business.
Chris Rodell [00:06:21]:
That's a lot to be proud of.
John Jamison [00:06:22]:
It was a big deal.
Stan Gordon [00:06:24]:
Hi. I'm Stan Gordon, researcher and author, and here's your colorful living tip of the day. Don't act surprised when scientists claim earth's been rotating for 4.53000000000 years. The surprise is it never started to squeak.
Chris Rodell [00:06:44]:
It's not something people around here like to hear about much, but I don't think Fred Rogers and Arnold Palmer got along very well. It's It's very strange. They were 2 of the greatest guys in the world, and they couldn't get along in a small town. And the only proof I have of it is all circumstantial, and I might be nuts. I was in mister Palmer's office in 2004 when he won the presidential medal of freedom. And I said, mister Palmer, congratulations on winning the presidential medal of freedom. What a great honor. And how about Latrobe having 2 winners in the last 2 years? He said, who won before I did? I said Fred Rogers won in 2002.
Chris Rodell [00:07:14]:
And he said, he did? Damn it. Now that's just an evidence maybe of mister Palmer being competitive. Maybe I misheard. But then I got a little nosy, and I started googling them. The 2 were 1 year apart All Latrobe High School. They would have known all the same teachers. They would have shopped at the same stores. They would have eaten at the same restaurants.
Chris Rodell [00:07:31]:
Their parents would have known each other. It was a small town. It still is. But there was no evidence that these 2 men who grew up to be internationally acclaimed ever knew each other or spent even a moment of time together. Go ahead and Google it. You can't see one picture of Arnold Palmer and Fred Rogers together. Mister Rogers did 895 shows about neighbors, And he had one man from his early years who was an actual neighbor who happened to be one of the most popular men on on the planet. That was Arnold Palmer.
Chris Rodell [00:07:58]:
And through 895 shows, he never had on Arnold Palmer on his shows about neighborhoods. And I wondered about that. I thought he had on policemen. He had on ballerinas, politicians, cobblers. He had on a talking gorilla. I like to think they said, well, let's ask the talking gorilla if he can come on. If he says no, then we'll ask Arnold. This is the end of our first season which I'm calling a trial run.
Chris Rodell [00:08:25]:
It's our 24th episode. And I've had a lot of questions about them, and I threw them all together And in an entirely unscripted interview, here are some of them. And that's true. I really mean unscripted. Honest. Wink wink.
Brandon [00:08:40]:
Okay, Chris. So, what's your assessment of the season?
Chris Rodell [00:08:43]:
I thought it was great. And uh... let me start that again. Okay. I thought it was great, but I am very vain about myself. You wouldn't wanna go mirror shopping with a guy like me.
Brandon [00:08:55]:
Alright. So how long does it usually take to produce an episode?
Chris Rodell [00:08:58]:
Well, it takes me and the producer about, about 15 minutes to record. It takes him about, I guess an hour to, to gussy up and take all the umms and things out. But it took me about 60 years to live.
Brandon [00:09:12]:
And, how many listeners do you have?
Chris Rodell [00:09:14]:
Somebody told me do you have Super Bowl numbers yet? I don't have Super Bowl numbers. But the, interesting thing was I had a spike of listeners in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. And the only thing I know about Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is it was part of a song from Slapshot, little bit south of Saskatoon. So for some reason, my podcast was ignored by everybody in the United States, but everybody up in Saskatoon one day said, check out this guy from Latrobe. He's really funny.
Brandon [00:09:41]:
What's been your favorite episode so far?
Chris Rodell [00:09:43]:
I like the one about tickling rats because I was able to say the words. I think nobody's ever paired these words together consecutively. Little rat hand jobs.
Brandon [00:09:52]:
It's definitely the first time I heard little rat hand jobs.
Brandon [00:09:56]:
Are you ever gonna do a simulcast?
Chris Rodell [00:09:59]:
I did one thing about once recently that had, it was an an Instagram post. The the crux of it was The the key to successful life is try and do something each and every day that will ensure parking at your funeral will be a real bitch.
Brandon [00:10:11]:
Does the podcast earn money, Chris?
Chris Rodell [00:10:13]:
Nothing. It hasn't earned me a dime. It's a a no a whole new humiliation when ask your 17 year year old daughter if you can borrow the car that night.
Brandon [00:10:22]:
You're not thinking for joy rides or anything?
Chris Rodell [00:10:24]:
No. No? No joy.
Brandon [00:10:28]:
Just rides to All. these.
Chris Rodell [00:10:32]:
I'm getting great reaction to the podcast, and that pleases me very much. It's from people who would never read my stuff and now listen to it in the car. But right now, I'm considering this this first season a trial run. We learned from it. I've got enough stories, but, we'll have to see where it goes.
Brandon [00:10:47]:
Well, Chris, I think I think what's great about your show though is, you know, you have all these stories. You have you've you've really lived a life. Yeah. And it's always interesting to hear, you know, some of The situations you get yourself into. And It
Chris Rodell [00:10:59]:
has been fascinating. And I wonder if that is is part of it. I don't I've always said I'm the richest man in town. I wouldn't trade my life for anybody else's. Yeah. I've had a great life, and I've really enjoyed these stories. And, people are afraid of dying alone. I said, I'm afraid of dying in a room with so many people and loved ones, and I won't be able to see the television.
Chris Rodell [00:11:18]:
Yeah. What
Brandon [00:11:20]:
would be on the TV?
Chris Rodell [00:11:22]:
Breaking Bad. Yeah. Thanks for listening. Are you ready ready to go? Yeah. Thanks for listening. It's really been a pleasure. I've really enjoyed doing this and sharing my stories with you. I hope you'll check back in.
Chris Rodell [00:11:34]:
And in the meantime, share this with friends and get get a big crowd for me. So when I come back, we'll have a a lot of listeners.
