Live August 07

Whether we like it or not, he's the self-proclaimed governor of mid-Missouri, and he's the host of TTBS, the podcast. Since we can't shut him the hell up, here's Tom Bradley. Thank you, Nikki. I certainly appreciate that. As we get ourselves together into this, oh my God, this is like the 14th episode of TTBS, the podcast. Already? Man, that's gone by fast. That is blowing my mind. Well, you've only been here for a portion of it, so yeah, it feels like it's past the year. But I've watched a lot of them, too. Yeah, you have. So it still seems shocking. I mean, it's a podcast. Do you think immediately, do you always go to the video and think, yeah, I'll watch it? Is that what you do? Yeah. So I've really enjoyed the past ones that you've done, especially with some of the interviews. So I won't sit there and stare at you. You're a good-looking guy, but I've got stuff to do. And so normally, I just kind of let it play in the background, like a more traditional podcast, like audio-only effect. Yeah. And I'm used to listening to you. I've been listening to you for 25 years. So just that voice in the background is okay. Good God, that's a long time. That is a long time. I met somebody the other day and said, I miss you on the radio. I'll be honest. The last time I heard someone say that with the same tone in his voice and stuff, I was still on the radio. And I said, well, I'm actually on the radio. I have a show right now. You do? I haven't heard it. And I go, you're probably thinking when I was on such and such. I named the radio station before that. He goes, no, that's not it. I named the radio station before that one. This is the truth. And he said, well, no, I named the radio station before that. And he goes, no, I'm talking about KTGR 1580. Yeah, 1580. You were playing country on 1580 AM. I was like, good God. So I very nicely said, why don't you crawl back into the rock you came from? I want to talk about the podcast and video and stuff in a second. Ellis Bennis, the other guy you're hearing over here with floatingaxe.com. And this week, I want to mention this because keeping an eye on the crap, at the end of the podcast each week, we go to keep an eye on the crap brought to you by Family Focus Eye Care. And this week, Columbia elected a socialist to the city council. And socialism is most widely in the United States, not known and understood. Most people could have no idea of what the definition is on socialism. And when you call someone a socialist, it sounds like you're calling them, you're an asshole. You're a road hog out here. You're a son of a bitch. Socialist is a thing. It's not a bad word. It's not a bad word at all. And most people don't even know that. And what is a socialist? And this is someone who apparently, as far as I can tell, because the media have trouble reporting on it, is someone who has been or is currently a member of the Socialist Party here in the United States, and more specifically in Missouri and here in Columbia. And good. I'm happy for you. But it is a change from where we used to be in the United States that someone might be proclaimed socialist and they would actually get elected. Bernie Sanders at the national level, he's the United States senator. He is a proclaimed socialist. And so when that came out, it was like, wow, that's a big deal. It's so more common now that this is happening here. And yet the media not reporting on it. I want to talk about this when we get to keep an eye on the crap that I mentioned was brought to you by Family Focus, iCare. Did I say that? That's good. Yeah. Keep doing it. Make sure I get that. You need the repetition. Yeah. I need to get that plug in there. But when I bring it up later, I want to talk about something. I want to talk about the Columbia firefighters. And I want to talk about my heroes, men and women who work for the Columbia Fire Department. And I want to talk about and you're going to find out why I'm bringing them up when I talk about the city council recent election and socialism. And I'm sorry I have to bring up that way. But but I do speaking of crap and bringing things up that I have to bring up break time convenience stores. I kind of mentioned them a little bit last week. Can you remember exactly what I said? I was looking at the post or everything is empty. Everything is out. It's dirty. That's I think is what you're talking about. I didn't say all that during the podcast. No, no, no. You just did that. I did. I posted a post on the on the on the on the socials, the socials. I did. I let break time have it kind of double barrel when after them and break time reached out to me. Wow. Which was a little bit of a surprise. Yeah. And I can certainly see why they didn't care for my post. Well, yeah, that kind of is not a positive light. And I told them that they remarked about my tone and some of the claims I made. Well, the claims I made were factual and accurate, which is why you see the photos and photo documented. Yeah. I didn't photoshop. Yeah. No. And the tone that I had, I can certainly see somebody not liking the tone. I was having fun with my writing and my captions. Did you read the captions on the photos a little on the first day? Yes. Thank you. And I and I had fun with those things. I don't blame them for not liking my tone. But the tone was absolutely intentional. So I sat down with break time yesterday morning and met in person and we talked. Wow. And I want to tell you the break time before I posted was already working behind the scenes. OK. And according to break time. And they've taken care of some things since I posted because of my post. Be that as it may, they have challenges. We talked about their challenges and they're working on it. I'm going to whether they know it or like it or give a damn about it. And I know that they might not like it and might not care about it and might not even realize it. I will be holding their feet to the fire. And I'm going to come back here. I want to mention them again. For those that don't know, break time is a convenience store chain and their headquarters around the world are right here, right here, Collegetown, USA. And I believe it's part of one of those things that I've always appreciated who they are and what they do. And they have slipped. And I told him I'm not going to give him a letter grade, but if I did, it'd be less than a C. And that doesn't include C minus. And I don't know where I would put them, but I wanted to mention that now and we'll get back to I'll bring it up again at some point. If you ever want to reach out to me and say, hey, man, I think you're full of crap. I think break time is great. Or I agree with you or whatever the hell it is you want to bring up. You can always reach out to me, Tom, at the Tom Bradley show dot com. You will find us at TBS dot show or the Tom Bradley show dot com. And on the housekeeping on video and podcasting, if you're listening to our show as a podcast, you decide to catch, you'd like to catch the video as well. Facebook keeps the video for about 30 days and then it's history, right? Which pisses me off because did you happen to see the quick video that I made? I shot in my pool. Little Man Bradley. Yeah, I was jealous of the pool, but yeah, I forgot to archive that. Oh, no. And that was only done on Facebook and I forgot to archive it. It's gone forever now. Really? I think I might be able to go. You shot it as a live like from your phone. It wasn't like you recorded it. Right. OK. Right. And so I should have saved it somewhere to Ben another video. Be that as it may, meanwhile, all of the podcasts, including video, are archived on our YouTube page. That's right. So if you go to our YouTube channel, you can find it there. So if you listen to the podcast, you're like, you're talking to Alice and I want to see what that soundbite looks like. Nobody's ever said that. My mom even said I had a face for radio. She did not. She did not. How is Mama Bennis these days? That is a wonderful thing to hear. So you can find that on our YouTube channel. All of our information and the links are found on our website, the Tom Bradley show dot com. I know we're taking a little while to get to our guest, but I had to talk about those couple of things and get those taken care of, which means that we are now up to not quite the guest portion, but it is time to release the house brought to you by Creekside Pet Center and Bed and Biscuit and Dirty Harry's in Boonville. This morning, by the way, I was out with Daisy Jane. Dude, you had I got I wish this could be caught on camera. She's over here. She's just finished taking a crap. I'm over here. I've just picked up her crap and I've bagged it up and it's groovy. So I'm over here with leash and bag of crap in one hand and coffee in the other. And it's a big, beautiful, St. John. Different hands, right? Different hands. Different hands. And she's like eight feet away from me and she's kind of looking around, checking some things out. And we're still in the darkness. It is like four thirty five a.m. So we're hanging out. And right then a bobcat releases the nastiest screeching, growling thing. Oh my gosh. It was it was amazing. We both looked in the direction and we both looked at each other. You had to see her look at me. And she stared into my eyes from eight feet away. I'm looking at hers. Could you hear that? And she was her ears were meaning yeah. And it did it a second time to which we looked back again. That's terrifying. And it was pretty cool. Geez. And there are a lot of woods near the the building we were close to. But that growl came on our side of the building. So it was less than forty five yards away. Oh my gosh. Very, very cool. You guys rushed back home after that, right? No, we took our time. Did you? You have to establish yourself. Oh, OK. I've known that. Tom was establishing. It's a great cat for a long, long time. OK. Announcements releasing the hounds, as it were, with Creekside Pet Center. Don't forget we mentioned last week they've got their pet-tacular birthday bash coming up. It's six years old and that is coming up on September the 13th. And that's going to be a hell of a time at Pierpont. I do believe we'll be back at Pierpont this year. Or is it back out at Creekside? I don't know. Now I have the date right. OK. They've done several things at Pierpont. I think they're going to be back at Creekside. OK. For the birthday bash. I apologize to them on that. The announcement I want to make is for next week. We will have with us Bonnie Steinmetz joining us from the Como Renewal Project. If you've had it up to here with homeless individuals and what the city is not doing about it. I shouldn't say that. The city is doing something about it. They're welcoming more. They're building a building for them. Yes. More homeless people to Columbia. You're going to want to be listening next Thursday to TTBS, the podcast with Bonnie Steinmetz of Como, the Como Renewal Project. And we will look forward to that one week from now. I do believe that we are ready then for bringing our guest on. All right. Our guest has been waiting very, very patiently and which is cool to have somebody be patient for me for a change. Most people aren't. I'm just saying. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll bring to the microphone and to the table Mike Murphy, which somehow I screwed up when I was tagging something earlier. Mike, I don't know if you ever get this. Do you ever get people confusing you with another Mike here in town? I'm going to wait on that for just a second. The other Mike is Mike Martin, who is more likely, I think, to go by Michael Martin, which means we have a Mike Murphy and a Michael Martin. It's like Michael Martin Murphy, the guy that gave us Wildfire. Do you remember that singer? Oh, my gosh. That was a long time ago. Way, way back. You're pulling it out of the archives again. I know. Mike Murphy. ComoBuzz.com. That's with one Z. Good morning. Thank you for being here. Good morning. Have we met before? I saw you do a stand-up act once. Oh, geez. Yeah. I might have met you then. Do you have a video on that? I'd really like to see this. I don't do stand-up acts. Why'd you have to pull that one out? Why the hell did you pull that one out? Was that for Job Point? I can't remember. It was a charity event. It was maybe three, four years ago. Maybe not quite that long. Why else would there be a crowd watching? Yeah. I mean, other than that, even if we had met that night, we haven't ever really talked. I'm aware of you. I want everybody else to be aware as well. And I want to tell you one of the reasons I reached out to you. Because less than a month ago, I meet with a bunch of guys every Wednesday evening, go over to Baroque Brewing, and we sit around and talk about stuff. They're all very, very good guys, good gentlemen. They're also business owners. And they're very much plugged into Columbia and what's going on here. And they said, we have a lack of reporting in town. And I was like, oh, don't even get me started, right? And we are going to get you started today in talking about this. And one of them came up with an idea about investigative reporting and trying to fund some sort of a deal. Well, that is kind of happening already, to some degree, with you. I don't want to put words in your mouth. What do you consider yourself at ComaBuzz.com? What do you call yourself? I call myself a content creator nowadays. I used to call myself a journalist, or people started calling me a journalist. But it has such a wide… It's a journalist nowadays, and also the connotation isn't particularly good anymore. It's down there, what used to be perhaps used car salesmen or life insurance salesmen. How did that happen? Well, journalism is, I mean, it's just become so uncredible. You didn't say incredible, you said uncredible. Yeah. The biggest thing that I faced… I spent the last 40 years in the newspaper business, but the last 20 largely on the business side. But when you get to the journalism side, the first 20 years running daily newspapers, actually working at them, writing for them, editing, you had a certain credibility, a certain cachet. You walked around. People didn't question everything you were doing. You could mess up and have to do a correction, or you might do something wrong, but you were credible. Today, journalism, there's so much skepticism about it. Just because it's wrong constantly, every day, even here in Columbia, you can just pick up the news. I can give you like three instances in the last week where I just said, oh my goodness, there was a time when we would never stand for that type of just poor performance. So people don't trust journalism anymore. And coming out of it, I come out of it, I walk around like I think I have all this integrity and all this. I worked so hard to be accurate and honest and never make a mistake or correct it when I do. But people look at you with such skepticism. It's a big hurdle to overcome. Right. You know, it's interesting listening to you, and I've caught a little bit of your shows on Sundays with Al Jermond on 93.9 FM in Columbia, which is recognized as the Eagle. And you guys do a show on there. Al and I are friends from decades, and he got his start in radio back in the 1960s. And the cool thing is that I was a child of radio, so I was already listening in my single digits. Probably at the age of five, I was trying to get a control of the radio in the car. And it's a true story, and I guess it's not hard for a lot of people to believe. But the thing is, I hear you talking. It's interesting to hear you talk because you are very fluid in your delivery of information. I've heard that on the air, and I heard it just now. How the hell did you learn to talk so well? You know, I never talked until a couple of years ago when I launched Como Buzz. I was a print journalist forever. And then I started doing stories in Columbia. And at the old roundtable where Al was, they called me up on the phone and said, hey, will you talk about this story? And so the truth of the matter is, I learned to talk when somebody stuck a microphone in front of my face, and I just started going. Did it begin with you, like you mentioned, phone? Were you doing some phone-ins for them? Yeah, they would call. They would say, hey, can you jump on the phone with us for 10 minutes on Sunday morning? And I'm trying to get Como Buzz off the ground, so I'm like, sure, I was looking forward to it. Well, then 10 minutes, you know, became 15 minutes, then it became 20 minutes, and like, hey, will you hold on until after the break? And then the next thing you know, it was David Shore, Bob Roper, and Al, and one of them would take a day off, and I'd sit in for him. Then unfortunately, David Shore passed away, and I filled his seat. And then Al got thrown off the station at some point, and then it ended up being just me and Bob Roper doing the roundtable, and we didn't have a host. So it was kind of like, well, what are we going to do? We're either going to give this whole thing up, or Mike, you're going to have to host. So I jumped on the internet and said, what do you do when you're the host of a radio station? Thank God. Thank God for the internet. By the way. You didn't buy radio hosting for dummies. Those are the four dummies. I'm going to abort it. I got it for free off the internet. David Shore, rest his soul, but he died and gave you an opening and an opportunity. And actually, my first morning shot in Columbia came because a guy had passed away, so you never know. Yeah. Has anybody inspected those? Yeah, no kidding. Both of you got your shots after. True story. Red flags. I want to get into, when you say journalists and journalism, I don't know if there's some people that just, you know, their eyes are glazed over and they're like, ah, words like integrity. I can't handle these things. Here's the reality. If there's a dog on the loose in town biting people, you want to know about it. It's as simple as that. And when somebody comes out to tell you there's a dog loose in town and it's bitten three individuals, okay, we need the facts on this thing. I don't need you to color it up right now. That's the problem we've gotten to with reporting and journalism in the United States and Missouri here locally, is that people want to color things up. And they're not even giving us all the facts. I don't know if they're holding back or if they don't know all the facts. What is your impression of what's going on? Well, I explain it this way. I grew up and, you know, I'm old enough to have grown up with hardened, grizzled old editors who taught you how to do this. And the idea was, is you go out and you collect facts and you verify and you get accurate information. And then when you figure out what's going on, you come in and you write a narrative and you write the story and tell people what's going on. Today, what I see coming out of the journalism school particularly is they've already decided what the narrative is. They said, this is what the story is. Now you go find the facts, collect up some facts to support this narrative. And then the next thing you know, you see their narrative like it's a news story. I see that every day here in Columbia. And that's how two networks can report on the exact same thing and have completely different narratives on the same one story. It really is. It really is. And they've got these agendas that they want to take on. So the other day, we were driving out in Missouri, going down to Sealville to do some river fun. And I'm looking over these beautiful vistas out there. And I'm going, wow, these hills, there's a lot of haze out there. I don't know anything about it. And the family tells me, yeah, it's fires up in Canada. Oh, this is an example of news and what you want to know. But the reason you would know that it's haze is somebody is told that and then they go and research it and make sure that's what's going on. They don't write the story to say, and this is what global warming is all about. Global warming may exist and it may be man-made and we may be able to fix it. But that's not what this story is about. It's about haze. What the hell's in my eyes? Hell, man, maybe I've got to go back to family focus. I care. Hey, Dr. Rich, what's going on with my contacts over here? That's a simple story, an example of. And sometimes I wonder on even the easiest of things, are we getting any accuracy out there? I don't think there's a deliberate attempt not to be accurate. I think there's mistaken attempts. There's inaccuracy every day that comes from incompetence, not so much from ideology. Where you see ideology is, I use the Missourian as a good example, which is really our only left standing newspaper. It's so important. I mean, I read it cover to cover every day. I wish the Tribune was still hanging in there. I think they're about done. There's not much in there to see. But what I see is they deciding in advance what the story is, what we're going to cover, what this is going to look like, and then they craft things around it. I don't appreciate it. I think it's pretty standard and pretty common now. It's hardly really recognized, but I certainly recognize it. Most people that are going through and getting the news, let's say from social media these days, they look through it and they go, oh, look at that. And that's about as deep as they go. If there's a paragraph or two, they read the first line and that's all they can handle. And they believe that that's accurate. Same thing if they actually read a bona fide media source, Columbia, Missourian, KOMU, listening to KBIA, whatever it is. They hear it and it washes across them and they believe they just got the facts. How many people take the time to open up the internet and look to see if this stuff is accurate? Very, very, very few. A thing that scares me to death is social media. I'm a social media junkie, I guess. I don't participate. I don't post. I tweet a little bit and I don't get in discussions online because they become inane quickly. But what scares me about there's so many people online, let's take Facebook, they speak authoritatively or Reddit's even worse. They speak authoritatively like they're delivering a fact and they have no idea what they're talking about. People read it and it sounds authoritative and they take it as a fact and there's so much misinformation. It's striking and it's scary, frankly. Let me ask you about that and ask you also, Ellis Bennis, do you consider yourself abreast of the news? No, I'm willfully ignorant a lot of the time, so I'm the exact opposite of you. I am a broadcaster only, so I will post and then leave social media for the most part. But what I do consider myself is very critical, so the first thing I check if I see something is I go to Snopes or another thing to see is this true before I even read it for a second more. And most people don't do that. They don't take the time. They see the one little headline, you know, it washes over them and move on. And that's it? Yep. It's really concerning to me, but I can't turn that tide. This is where everybody's going. I just want to know, is somebody out there actually looking into this and figuring it out, what's going on, and putting it out as an informative story, not a biased story? And are they digging deep? You're saying there's a certain ineptitude going on here. Well, I used to, for years, publishing daily newspapers, somebody would get me on the phone and want to be screaming at me about some story we did, because it was biased, and usually it was a left-right bias is what they want to talk about, still kind of is. And I explained over and over again, and they would say, this is you guys, you at the newspaper, you want this to happen, or this is where you're coming from. And I would say, boy, I wish we were that capable of doing something like that. But the fact of the matter is, we just screwed up. We just didn't do a good job. We didn't get it right. And we're not near as smart or as capable as you think we are to be able to try to manipulate or do something like that. And I think, even in Columbia, far and away, most of the media issues are, well, let's face it, there's very little talent working in local media. There's a constant turnover. There's very little money in local media. Let's go back to the talent for a second. You mean the people there aren't talented, or that the people that are listed in payroll as the talent, we just don't have very many of them anymore? Both. Both. They're very, very, very short-staffed almost everywhere. Things that used to be considered critical are no longer, functions are no longer being done. And then also, well, I asked people this when we were talking about Como Buzz, it's like, and they're saying, hmm, and I'm raising their eyebrow, and I say, okay, you tell me, name me one piece of journalism that you're aware of that came out of traditional media here in Columbia in the last, what, six months, a year, two years, five years? Tell me one that sticks with you that you remember changed something, was wow, brought some information to you, showed enterprise, showed investigation. Name me one. And of course, it's a blank, because there's none being produced. So they're in a day-to-day slog of putting out what they think is today's news, what the cops send them, what City Hall put out for a press release. I frequently refer to them as state media, simply because all their information comes from government. They never question it. They never make a phone call. I'm getting carried away with criticism. It's just that I find the media, after having worked in it my entire career, and running newsrooms and trying to make them better, very frustrating. And a lot of it has to do with there's very few people, kind of like me, who spent a career in it, who have respect and understanding for it, who are massively disappointed in what it looks like today, out there working. I can hear the stories, listening to them, reading them. I can see, I can tell which words came from the press release, and that's what they're running. And you can do the same thing, can't you? Yeah, sure. I see it every day. I shake my head. And that's why I chide them. I have this interesting relationship with the media. They're figuring me out. They are well aware of me now, and that's why I chide them. It's like, quit running those press releases and go find out what's going on. That takes effort. And number two, it's probably some kid who has no life experience, who's finding his way, and they don't know what's going on and how in the world they've been here for six months or 18 months, and they're about to be gone. They got no contacts. They got no sources. They have no understanding. They've never been to the DMV. They don't know the horrors of life. They never go buy license plates. That is really something you refer to as like the state media, because that's what it's really feeling like. Do you remember, was it Russia? Was it Pravda? What am I remembering? What was the state? Is that what it was? Pravda, yeah. Pravda. I remember that. That was a long time ago, wasn't it? The United Soviet Socialists. I mean, because it was the USSR, and when they said something, it was a news story in their state media. I think that describes Columbia's media pretty much perfectly. Unbelievable. You were educated in Michigan, Central Michigan University. You cut your teeth as a professional in the news business in Michigan, also at several newspapers up there, and then you came on down here yonder to, almost to the south, to Missouri and spent years working down here, including the Tribune. At the Tribune, did you work with a local ownership? No. So, by the time, it was Gatehouse at the time, it's now called Gannett, it's the largest newspaper company in the country. They bought the Columbia Tribune from the Waters family in 2016. At that point, I had been running newspapers. So you start out as a reporter and an editor, ultimately you can pursue that path and you move to the business side. That's where the money is. I moved to the business side, became an ad director, then ultimately became a publisher of a newspaper, runs a newspaper. Ultimately, you get a few newspapers, then you get a division of newspapers. By the time I got to Columbia, I was on the corporate staff of Gannett, the company that bought them. And I came in here, not to run the newspaper, per se, or the advertising department, the circulation department, but to run that printing company, the printing presses and packaging company they have, a facility they have on Ash between 4th and 5th downtown. That was referred to as Tribune Publishing. Correct. Correct. So I ran that. I was running that. And my job was, and one of the big reasons they bought the Columbia Tribune, was to consolidate, because remember, now newspapers are in a death spiral at this point, to consolidate probably 25 different newspapers that they had in Missouri and the surrounding five states to move their operations into there to print them and package them, ship them back. So that's what I spent my last five years doing. It wasn't a fun job and I was glad to finally walk away because the writing was clearly on the wall. What do you see yourself as today? I don't know your age. I don't know what else you're doing. If you're independently wealthy. No, I'm not. This Como Buzz is like a project. So I've always been a news guy. My newsrooms were always as good as I could make them. My editors liked working for me. I see this disappearance of news across the country. We're calling them news deserts now, where there's no news. I see how government behaves when there's no newspapers watching over them. So Como Buzz is like my vision of something that's going to fill the niche in journalism, some watchdog journalism, some important journalism. The stuff that people don't have time for, they don't have energy for, they can't consume on a daily basis, but yet it's very important and needs to happen. Who's going to fund that? How that's going to happen? I don't think government should be funding it. I don't think philanthropy is ever going to really fund it correctly. I think we have to make journalism a business again. What I'm trying to do is prove that good journalism can be good business and people will pay you for it. It's a big bite. That's what I'm trying to do. Enough for you to make a living? Or more. Yeah, enough for me to build a company. Last time I asked a guy that was doing a hobby and I asked him if he was making a living, he goes, who the hell are you, the IRS? It's definitely not a hobby. I don't think of it that way. I think I'm trying to build a business and show others, and other people around the country are doing it too, that good journalism in a community is very, very important and if you can produce it, people will pay for it and you can build a business on it. Let me tell you something. I've never paid for it in my life. I know that he's said that many times. I've never paid for it in my life. You don't hear me in my office by myself and I go, screw you Kansas City Star. I've said it to every major outlet out there. Me too. The only time I've ever considered it, because I still haven't paid for it yet, the only time I've ever considered it has been here locally with you. That's the first time ever. I think if there was applause here, we'd be having that right now because I think we're to that point. A subscription for you at ComaBuzz.com, and I've got a cold up in front of me right now, is $9.99 a month or how much per year? $99. $99 a year. You've got to get a lot of people following you to pay for your toast in the morning. Correct. I knew it would be a long sludge because I'm just like you. Nobody wants to pay for it. We've been trained we shouldn't have to. But original content, people are creating original content in their communities. For that to happen, somebody's going to have to pay for it. I think as time goes by and we're in a transition period right now away from the traditional media, well, and Columbia is a perfect example, humbly I will say that the only journalism that's been being committed in Columbia in the last two years is being done by Como Buzz. There are some people who might think you're really bragging big about that thing and you're full of crap. I have a feeling that you're right. It's provable. You can go out and pick every single big story, every single, the entire news narrative of anything going on, whether it be the City Hall, whether it be Columbia Utilities, whether it be Boone Health, I could just go, anything in the news here in Columbia that is an issue, it's been brought out as an issue by Como Buzz. The other media follow along or they do day-to-day. Tell me about these right now. I'm going to read the, I'm just going to go down in order. On the Daily Buzz, Wednesday evening, this is last night, Vera Elwood's elected to the Columbia City Council on Tuesday, she defeated Ken Rice in a race for the city's second award. Now a lot of other medias in the area have that. Is yours a more accurate story than everybody else's? So every night, every single night at four o'clock, we post a summary of what happened in the day. So that aggregates every media in town, plus ones that I've collected up, it's accurate, no more or less, it's a summary of everything going on in town, shows up there every single day at four o'clock. The other stories that I might see in here are more, I won't call them investigative unless you will, are they, it's more you digging and you reporting. These are the stories now you won't see anywhere else, probably. Dust up at Columbia Jet Center, now a legal battle. Former MU medical student sues over expulsion tied to record access allegations, allegations of record access. Elwood wins Ward 2. Columbia's new homeless shelter and service hub taking shape. That's a scary story. Yes. You should see it. Oh. Unbelievable how huge it is. June building permits, you've got that out there and that construction is staying hot. This one I saw earlier this week, yeah, you published this on Tuesday. DNR director, Columbia stormwater permit remains on hold over homeless camp pollution. Does anybody else have that story yet? Not that I know of. You put it out on Tuesday. Who's the DNR director? Kurt Schaefer. Kurt Schaefer. He was on my show way back in the day a number of times, former state senator. He's held other positions as well, a lot of people locally know him. He's the director, Department of Natural Resources, he is holding out the permit. Is this the part where it's a coordinated permit between Columbia, Mizzou, and Boone County? Yes. And it's being held out right now because we are polluting, is it Hinkson Creek? Correct. I read that from your story. Yeah. This is an example of something you don't want to know about that. That's up to you. You're not going to find this on social media unless it's a link back to Mike Herpes, Comabus.com. That's right. That's right. How often are you putting out stories like that? Every week. I try to put out four or five a week. You know, it's how much can I produce? I have way more stories than I can write. So I pick and prioritize them and see what I can get out. July 29th, you published Columbia's looming power crisis, a city at risk as energy reality clashes with renewable aspirations. The city council knows that, but they're not talking about it. That's a perfect story that I would brag on about Comabus. That's a true story that nobody's even going to come close to putting out in Columbia. I don't know if there's anybody in Columbia capable of putting out that story or who have done the work over the last couple of years to be knowledgeable enough to put out that story. Let me tell you this, Mike. This is important to, I think, mirror what you're talking about. Last week we had Wendy Sweats on the program. I've known Wendy since she was 21, tending bar at the executive center. We've known each other a long time. I saw her post this week. It was only hours old. I saw it about 4.45 in the morning on Monday, last Monday, a week ago Monday. I saw that post. I reached out to her immediately. She has a problem with homeless people invading homes that she's trying to sell as a real estate agent. I don't know if you caught any of that at all. I did. I reached out to her. She immediately came back and said, yes, I'll be on your show, absolutely. So we got her booked up. Within days of me posting that she was going to be on, she was being contacted by other media outlets. I guarantee you they're not friends of hers, following her social media. They were keeping up with mine. We had her on the show. She's been on, I think, two television stations and one newspaper in the area. There are many, many real estate agents, and they all came clamoring to her because we went after that. Are there media outlets following you and picking up your lead on some of these stories? Definitely. Absolutely, definitely. The problem is, take that story that you just read. They would have to give credit to Como. They can't go write it themselves. They're just not capable of it. They're all real leery about giving credit to Como Buzz. Makes them look bad. There's weird… I don't fully understand it. If I was in their shoes and I've done it forever, I would happily give credit to Como Buzz and say this is what he's reporting because this is important and we can't report it. But no, they pretend it doesn't exist because, largely, it's the Missourian and Missourian gets to operate in that cocoon over at the university. KOMU, likely the same. They're struggling just to survive the days. KMIZ, I don't fully understand them. I think they're the leader of… They're the ones who I think should be… I did a story, I'll give you an example, on this autistic girl in this massive court case with this stalker guy who people know. I thought it would bring such attention and I remember talking to the family and I said what you need to expect here, really, is the KMIZ news trucks in your driveway tomorrow. It's kind of jokingly, but the truth of the matter is no other media has even touched it. Unbelievable. I know, I know. KMIZ has been the police blotter station, so they're right on that and they're getting it to social media immediately and they do a good job of reporting. There were shots fired. There were 10 police cars there. They were there for 48 and a half minutes and they're giving us information right away. And the others, I think, it's a shooting and shootings are kind of icky. Maybe we should stay away from reporting that. Correct. Or in the Missourians case, oh my gosh, this happened right next to campus. This is horrible. We're not going to run this, are we? Right. Right. Because it paints them in a bad light. I mean, that's literally state media at that point. Correct. I mean, that is crazy. It's even state-owned if you get right to it. Yeah, I mean, literally, it's state-owned media. And how many people realize that we have Columbia, Missouri, which you've already said, at least that's worth having. Oh, yeah. And you go through it daily and not the Tribune anymore at all. So you've got the Missouri, you've got KOMU, and you've got KBIA are all the university's mouthpieces. Correct. Which are funded by the state, which are not going to go against anything, federal or state. Unbelievable. That story yesterday about the med student suing the university, naming names, naming the names of like seven faculty members, saying she was set up to take the fall for a data breach. Do you think you'll see any of that in any other media? This is not just somebody complaining and you were on a street corner going, well, tell me more. This is someone who has filed a lawsuit. It's a court document. It's now in our court system and our state is recognizing it as a legal situation that we have to address. This is like anything else that we see. Truth of the matter is, as a reporter, it's a totally easy story to do. It's in documents. It's a piece of cake. It's no real reporting to do it. And no one's touching it. No. Before you put up the other story concerning our energy, you said, city exploring multi-million dollar infrastructure overhaul through energy savings contracting. Has anybody touched that? That was back July 25th. No one has touched that yet. No. Why? I don't understand the refusal to, I would think he would be making their jobs easier. Like he's going deep dive. I mean, they're okay quoting other sources, right? They'll quote the Kansas City Star. They'll quote the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They'll quote these other media outlets, but you're somehow untouchable because you're diving deeper. The thing is, they don't have to quote him. They just need to use him as a springboard. Right. Hey, this is all the information that Comobuzz.com has put out. And so all we got to do is go and verify from the sources that he's taking this information from. And we'll have the story, which by the way, people steal like that in journalism reporting all the time. All the time. So you got the Boone County Joint Comm. puts out an alert and says there's an accident on 63 and there are 15 ambulances going and there's a helicopter going there. Believe me, we've got reporters that hear that and then they go. That's where they got their initial information and then they go follow it up. Okay. I want to ask more questions about Comobuzz.com and then I want to talk about the future and this 45, 55 minutes is going to fly. So let me ask about Comobuzz.com and your beginning on that. Did you come up with this on your own and then see other people doing it around the nation or did you see them and go, I could do that? Both. I spent a lot of time. I'm familiar with what's going on around the country in the newspaper business and the journalism business. What's going to happen next? All the angst. I mean, I've lived it. The angst, the decline. I mean, I mean, I've run little newsrooms with 20 people that now I've run by two. What's going to become the future? Where is news going to come from? And I believe totally it's going to come from subscriptions. I don't think you're not. Real news anyway. Yeah. Actual news. Correct. There's no other mechanism that's going to work. There's some philanthropy out there, but to me, if you're going to take donated money, it's always going to come with strings attached. Yes. And sure as heck, we don't need government funding it. Government doesn't want newspapers. I can promise you, or media, I can promise you. To me, it's going to be a user-based deal. And that's my pledge with my subscribers. The reason I don't, I'm so comfortable when people, politicians especially, or local electives, oh, he's not telling the truth or he's making something up or it's fake news. I'm like, listen, I got to keep my subscribers happy. They're paying me to work. If they don't trust me anymore, they're not going to pay that 10 bucks a month to me. They're not going to give me a hundred bucks a year. I want the masses to recognize what I'm doing and start giving me that money so I can build this thing out. But I have to be what I say I'm going to be to get this, get funded. I think that's the only path forward for good journalism. I don't see, maybe somebody will come up with it. I have not seen anything out there of everything people are trying. They're funny with advertising. Okay, that's a possibility. But you piss off an advertiser and you lose money. That's how newspapers are funded. I'm good with that. Give it a try. Make it work. This is my shot at showing people this will work. You give people good content, they'll pay you for it. You can build out an operation. First of all, as a businessman, a consultant, and as a capitalist, I believe that. I believe that if you create something people really want, they'll really pay you money for it. And like I said, this is the first thing I've ever considered online, paying a subscription like this. It's funny, I make jokes with my wife about it, because I'm putting out a product that nobody cares about. Because the problem is, people have become civically unengaged, and you know that. You look out at Columbia, people are living well. The problems that we have at City Hall, the problems going on across the country, that homeless excrement hasn't flowed through their backyard yet. They're not engaged. My publication is for the engaged citizen, and there are some. But the fact of the matter is, the masses in Columbia are disengaged from local government and local civic activity. You know, the apathy is what's going to really kill us all in the end, there's no question about that. And I see a different sort of an apathy with a certain citizen in Columbia. I'm seeing this new kind, Mike, and I want you to comment on this, where they have the ability, they have the education, they have the freedom and time and money and everything else to care and to be involved in some extent. And I think they're considering just ignoring it and leaving. I think they're considering leaving, I think they're zoning out, tuning out mentally, and I think they physically may wind up leaving Columbia. I think you're right. Every place I've ever lived, there was people battling for their town. And business leaders in particular, I mean, every place I've ever, and I'm not that well traveled, but there were like bank presidents and there were civic leaders who cared deeply and were in making sure things run right. In Columbia, there's nobody making sure things run right. I'll give you an example of that would be Dave Griggs, who has been plugged into Boone County. He's Boone County born and bred. People of his kind are, well, they're getting old, they're going away. And there's nobody replacing them. There's no younger middle crew of people that are around City Hall telling, giving advice to council members and staff members saying, hey, this is what we got to do. They're heading out on the weekend, they're tailgating, they're living good, they're living in gated communities now, and they're largely disengaged. So local government is a dumpster fire. But besides that, the fact that people no longer want to engage, it's a little messy. I know it's stressful. So they just choose not to. But here's the thing. If we don't engage, and if we don't do something, and if there's not people like you trying to hold the politicians and the business owners and the environments to the fire, their feet to the fire, then nothing will ever change. And we can all run away, right? We can go to some other city. But people are leaving California in droves. But what are they doing? They're going to bring those problems there, and then they're going to trash that place and then move on again. So I would say this may be a strong statement. I don't know you. Never met you before. I've seen a couple of Como Buzz articles, but I haven't dove deep. But what it feels like right here is if you have even a nominal amount of civic desire or any desire to see our city change, this is $10 a month that you can actually make a change. Because when you're holding these people's feet to the fire, it shines the light on, and that's the only way that they're going to make any changes, right? Unless somebody is called out, unless they are held accountable, nothing will ever change. So for $10 a month that you can start to make change, I think this is a great… I'm going to probably sign up today. I love this because I can feel like I'm doing something for my town. Here's the other thing that is a big part of this is there's so much news out there. We talked about it a little earlier, Tom, about social media and all the stuff that's out there. Here's the other thing is you have to pick and choose something sooner or later that you can trust. Yes. And Como Buzz, you're going to be able to trust. And if you don't, then take your money and go elsewhere. You've got to get informed. Are you working full time on this? I don't know how to phrase that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. And are you doing some other things over at Zimmer Radio Group? Yeah. So basically, and this is… People get confused about it, even who know me and stuff. So my heart and soul is into Como Buzz. I mean, that is definitely what I am all about and I've positioned my life at this point of it. I no longer… I sort of retired, right? This is what I'm… But I'm way young and don't feel like retiring. This is what I'm going to do for the next 10 years at least. So Zimmer Radio is a repurposing opportunity and marketing opportunity for me with Como Buzz material. So right now I'm doing afternoon newscasts and largely I recast Como Buzz stuff broken down into a 20 second… And they're okay with that? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Wonderful. First of all, good for them because they've got some extra reporting. Yeah. They're way more than okay with it. Listen to this. Yeah. Okay. Then I got this Sunday show, which is just… Basically, it's a Sunday rehash of what we did all week on Como Buzz. It's two hours? Yep. Eight to 10? Yep. Call in. It's a blast. It's really… Yeah. It's booming. The calls just roll in. We have smart, knowledgeable people. I really think we're becoming the clearinghouse for people in Columbia who want to know what's going on on Sunday morning. Is that only… Is that radio only? Yeah. Or do you simulcast on any kind of social? Well, the podcast… No. There's a podcast out there. Okay. That's it. Okay. But not live. And then here's the big thing, and this is the first anybody's hearing of it, but later this month we're launching a afternoon drive news show. It's going to be a news hour. I don't have a name yet. Might have a name today. But from five to six… On 93.9. Uh-huh. From five to six weekdays, there's going to be a Como Buzz news hour. You're going to be doing it? I'm going to be doing it. Oh. That's awesome. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So that's going to be… Well, it's important to say… I mean, I picked on break time earlier. I'm very honest about this stuff. Yeah. And it's important, I think, to say Zimmer Radio, Cumulus Radio are about as different as Mars and Venus, okay? Oh, for sure. They're not that far apart. For sure. Do you know what's going on with Cumulus? I think of Cumulus like I think of the Tribune, unfortunately, and I say it with a heavy heart. It's not their fault. It's part of the business. The Tribune's part of a massive, huge company. KFRU's part of a massive, huge company, and Cumulus in general here. And they're not doing well. In fact, Cumulus is on the verge of bankruptcy again. Their stock's down to like 15 cents or something. Good grief. So they've laid off. Basically, they have no new staff anymore. They're managing some live work in the mornings still, but they're a shell of their former self. And I know and I love some of the people there. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The people that I know, I love over at Cumulus. I didn't want to make it sound like I only love some of them. I don't want to dive into the business, but how can you own almost 400 radio stations and be on the verge of bankruptcy? None of them make any money. Really? Yeah. Well, I'm part of it. The radio ads and everything? Well, part of the problem is that when you look at Zimmer Radio, I mean, there's much more of a local mentality in how they're operating. But it's not specifically radio that's keeping the power on. Right. They do a lot of things. Right. They're really a marketing company now is what they're doing. Cumulus is a shell game on Wall Street. And so the Dickey brothers back in the day, it was all about raising funds and building and tearing apart all at the same time. Gannett's that owns the Tribune is not much different. And they're both in different states and close in the death spiral of local media. Interesting. That's such a shame. So I do. I want to point that out with Zimmers that they're working hard over there. And they are local. I mean, they live in this community. They stay in this community. All the stations are here for the most part. Yeah. Yeah. And I need to say this just so you understand. I am really trying to take an honest look at those properties and tell you what's going on. Yeah. There are people I love and I have bad blood history with both radio groups. I'll tell you right now, when you're a guy like me, everybody in radio of your vintage does. Yeah. That's just the way that it goes. But I love the folks that are out there doing their thing and making it work. Some people have said before, I need to mention who our guest is on this show. That's weird because a podcast, you'd already seen it, that it's Mike Murphy, Comabus.com. But because of the way we post the live version on both YouTube and Facebook, you won't see it. So I'll tell you right now, it's Mike Murphy with Comabus.com. How long has it been around? Two years. I think we're in our third year. Would you say it's doing fairly well? Yeah. I pick up subscribers every day. I've done no marketing, which we're, I'm serious. Two marketers. That's, that's problematic. Well, it takes money and I've seen so much marketing dollars wasted over the years and I don't really know how to do it. So I've, my gig at Zimmer's been good for me and it's word of mouth. Many people around government, institutions around Columbia know of me and read me for sure. The masses in Columbia aren't aware of me yet, although I'm getting into, they're starting to hear about me. Do you, do you risk hurting Comabus.com by sharing so much information? You said, when does the new show start on, on August 25th? August 25th. Are you going to hurt yourself? No, I don't think so. I think that I'm going to repurpose, when you take that story on the looming power crisis in Columbia or Columbia's total wasting of $28 million on renewable energy that it was just, just, just pissed away, frankly. That makes a 20 second bite on the, on the radio. I think it helps because if you want to know, then you're going to have to go read Comabus to find out. You're going to get deeper in that thing. Some people might hear you say that like, oh, here's a guy, he's going to deny that we need renewable energy or he's all against it. You're talking about a problem that really was set up by previous administrations in city government here, our previous mayors and city council people that said, here's the path we're going to go down. They set us up on this path and we're looking at it now and it's not making sense. We've wasted a lot of money. No, nobody who's being critical of this is a climate denier or everybody who I know at city hall or any government. They're mad about the wastefulness of the money. It's not, it's not that we don't like the renewables, it's you pissed away $28 million. We're all for hurry up and get as much renewables as you can, as soon as you possibly can to make it practical. But what they've done is not only wasted that money on renewables, that $28 million, we need smart meter technology here. That would save more energy. That would make energy cheaper for you. That would do better for our carbon footprint. I thought we were getting some of that. We don't have it yet. We don't have the money. Zero? We have no infrastructure in place. The meters that we're currently installing will work with new metering technology because there's no other meters available. We have no way to read them. No. We need 30. Right. That's right. We got, we have a $30 million project waiting to be done. Everybody had, Boone County has it. Fulton has it. We stuck the $30 million and sent it to some wind farm in Iowa for no reason whatsoever. These are the kinds of things that we need to talk about. You're telling me it will cost $30 million to get the smart meter technology in place and operating at $30 million. Correct. That we already have it in places like Boone County. Correct. But not inside Columbia. Correct. Holy crap. Oh yeah. I've been covering it. I've been covering it. It's just like, it goes on and on and, you know, just this week, and this is an example of it. Last year, in the very last council meeting this last Monday night, beginning of the meeting, they say, we spent $3 million last year on renewable energy that we didn't need to spend. We could have got the power $3 million cheap, but we did. And so we did because we can. We did. Then later in the meeting, they say, we're going to, oh, and then they said, but that didn't cause anybody to have a increase in their electric rates. An hour later in the meeting, they're going to raise electric rates by 2% next year. What does that 2% generate? $2.8 million. This is how they roll though. And you know what? None of that is in any media. Yeah. And I cannot believe the lack of actual reporting going on on these stories. I just, and I come unglued. I'm sitting in my chair and I'm like, Deb, are you, are you hearing what they said? And I, I look at her eyes. She cares as much as I do, and on some subjects more than I do, but I can still see it in her eyes. He's doing it again. And I'm like, I can't. I can't. You talked about the apathy or the desire to run away. But I think a bigger problem from that is not necessarily that they're apathetic, but they feel powerless. I mean, honestly, most people have no idea how to affect change. These people are in office. They want to vote. We have the ideologies. We have two different, you know, main networks screaming completely opposite things at us. And most people are just, they're paralyzed. It's not that they don't care. They just don't know what to do. You are so right. But the thing that's so amazing about it is when it's local, when it's your HOA, when it's your local kids' elementary school, your school board, the city council, your electric cooperative, which is right down the road, you can make a change in actual world that you live in. How in the hell can someone feel powerless? But I, I, I believe you'd be right, Mike Murphy, we're going to have to start wrapping this up. You, I don't know that you were here to sell ComaBuzz.com. Maybe I was. It won't be the first time I've sold something to myself. I'm right there with you. I've had people approach me. This makes me feel good. I feel like I can have some kind of an impact on my community by supporting him because he's going to be looking into this stuff. I know that. What I tell people, and this is self-serving, but the first start, the first start though, you see, he is honest, is get it, get informed. Yeah. Make an effort to get informed. Then when you're talking to your friends and neighbors, you'll have an impact because they're not informed. Just get informed. Coma Buzz can really help you do that. That's a hell of a good message. That's an elevator pitch. Here. No, here's an even better one for you. You've been working on that for some time. You need marketing. Here's your marketing for you. Read Coma Buzz and be the most interesting person at the barbecue. Bam. There you go. That needs to be your next graphic. Let me, let, let's, let's. We send them an invoice for this, right? Let's consider something because, because I'm going to go ahead and subscribe. Yeah, me too. And, and listen, you'll speak of me and when you do be kind, you'll be like, you know, Tom Bradley, the first news service he ever subscribed to online subscription line, it's coma buzz.com. And I want, I want you to be kind about that, but I want you to consider we should cross promote also. I could use a little bit over and I don't beg for such things very often, but I'm begging. I'm wide open for that. I think we should cross promote. Good luck with the, uh, with the addition of the show on the Eagle and afternoon. I'll hopefully be catching that on occasion. I want to bring up something else very briefly. I'm a child of audio besides radio. Do you know that your speech pattern and your voice is very, very similar to Algermon? Did you know that? I did not. Huh? That's, I don't even know what to think about that. I think you should think highly. He's a, he's recognized as being a, uh, quite the voice, I think across the area, a voice of reason. I'd love to see, do you have social media where people can follow you? Facebook, Twitter, anything? Just Twitter. Okay. So yeah, that's, I want to follow you there. So I can find, get the extra combo buzz.com and it's really good. Mike Murphy. Thank you. And I want to say, I'm sorry, although you could apologize too, that we haven't met up and just sat around and, and talked before because it just seems like we probably should have a long time ago. Agree. Hopefully Michael make your job easier cause he'll be pushing you good stories to share. I'm going to be, I'm going to, I'm going to subscribe if I'm subscribing, I'm not stealing the story. I'll give you a lot to talk about. I hope so. I hope so. Uh, as you finish up, we're going to have a few more minutes on here and you can either drop the headphones and roll on your way or you can hang out, but I'll be bringing your mic down at this time. Thank you very much for being a guest this morning. Wow. I think Ellis, as you, some of the things you had to say during that, I mean you were engaged and you were like, bam, bada, bam, bada, bam. And I know that you are, I know that you're a caring person, intelligent. You like to talk like I do, but I just, I just, uh, I feel like, um, you knew what we were going to be talking about today. Do you feel like this was enlightening to you? Oh, very much so. And, and again, I am one of those people that feels kind of powerless. Like, well, first off, I can't vote in the city of Columbia elections because I live in Calloway County. I absolutely research and vote where I can, but there's a lot in Columbia that I'm not allowed to have a voice in. And I am one of those people that kind of feels a little powerless. It feels like there's this huge system that, I mean, a system that can waste $28 million. That's nothing on par with what you and I can handle. And so I am, I am one of those people that feels a little powerless and where I do a develop a little bit of that apathy where, you know what, I'm just going to focus on my kids, my business and do what I can. I really liked the fact that 10 bucks a month might actually be me getting to contribute because I'm, I was literally born in Boone hospital, raised in Columbia, went through Columbia public schools. My wife is the exact same. All four of my kids are the same, you know, and I don't want to just disengage. I like that we can do this. One thing I didn't ask Mike and it's, and I'll reach out to him at another time is if enough of us subscribe, does that increase his ability? Does he get somebody on board? Does he get something? So what about an internship with somebody at the J school that actually knows, wants to be an investigative journalist that thinks they can't anymore. I love it. It's like, they know why the Edward R Murrow award is called that, you know, because most people at J school today probably don't even have any, that's what he said. He wants to build a business. I mean, I, I can't, I, he said he wants to do this 10 more years if he could afford it to have another investigative journalist. That's twice the stories that he could push. All right. We only have a little bit of time left and this is really, really important. I believe it's a little tiny piece of news and a nuance that came out over the last month or two and it was reported again this week because of the city council election and I'm telling you, you've got to keep your eye on the crap. Are you ready? You got to keep your eyes on the crap. He can't handle the crap. Okay. There's a big difference between shit and shinola as my great grandfather always said, Matumba, keep your eye on the crap. All right. So earlier this week, uh, we city of Columbia, he like, let me mention this just very briefly in that anything you heard us talking about during this podcast and we referred to local issues, outlets, people, subjects, whatever. This is happening in every town in America, every state, the entire nation and our view of the world. Yeah. Now our enemies are both domestic and foreign. They're all around us every day. The crap that you don't want out there. We keep our eye on the crap. Thank you. Family focus. I care. Fam. Focus. I.com. Dr. Rich has incredible teams. And I mentioned Columbia, you know, they got a, they got a location in Eldon, Eldon, Missouri. How many people do we have listening to this podcast in Eldon? Thousands. Leave us a comment. If you're in Eldon right now, thousands and thousands. There was a fire. There's thousands and thousands of people in Eldon. You're supposed to, you're supposed to receive this information like media, unquestioned, right? Like KOMU reports on stuff. I'm giving you the press release verbally. Just report on it. Uh, well, good morning. Eldon family. Focus. I care. Here's the reality. I'm a council person in Columbia and I hope she does a great job. She and I are not similar, but we might have a lot of the same interests and important things in our life. I know one of the things important to her is equality among peoples and she probably flies a rainbow flag on occasion. If I ever have, it was probably because it was a pretty rainbow and I was like four years old. I don't, I don't have one of those, but you can be as queer as anything you can possibly imagine and you're okay with me. I don't have an issue with that. Just don't leave me hanging. I told you a story earlier this morning. Don't leave me out in the wind. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to my face. Don't lie to my face. No, I don't. It doesn't matter to me. It really, I hope you're happy and I hope you're contributing member of society. I hope that she represents Columbia and makes good choices in her role. What I want to bring up to you is that she's a, uh, to some level of member of the socialist party. What is a socialist and what is socialism and why exactly would she have been endorsed for this election by the Columbia professional firefighters, I A F F local 10 55 because that's a union because that's a union, firefighters and socialism seem to be worlds and worlds apart. Right? Generally firefighters, when we refer to them as firefighters, they're interested in one thing saving first lives, saving second property damage costs thereof protection, safety prevention is what firefighters are about. Why would firefighters lean into socialism? It's all about being a member of a union. Socialism read online. You've never looked it up. It's right at your fingertips. Every question you could possibly come up with. Every answer you're looking for is at your fingertips. Socialism is a political construct. It's economic. It's a system where people collectively own or control the means of production. We're not a socialist society. Our government is not based on socialism. It's based on capitalism. I would imagine every member of the Columbia firefighters, professional firefighters union are capitalist when it comes to things like their car, their home, they like the idea. Even the ones who are currently renting, they really would like to own property, their name. They like owning their name. That's property, intellectual property. We love it. You can call the police and they will be removed from your property. It's interesting to live in a society based on capitalism and promote and wish for socialism. Do the Columbia firefighters actually want us to be a socialist republic? I don't think so. I highly doubt it. Yeah. They just need to make sure they're funded. Does the new city council person wish we were in a system based on socialism? And I'm going to guess, I'm going to step out on the line here on a limb, and I'm going to guess she would love it. So that's how we find strange bedfellows in such a place. And I think the firefighters, I have a lot of them that are my friends. Love you guys. Do a hell of a job and you put your lives on the line. You're more brave than I would ever be. I'm not running into a burning building. No. No. And you guys are, you guys are amazing individuals. I think you need to do some soul searching and figure out what it is. You know, one of the things that city council person, I'm sorry, I'm going late on this, but I can't stop. One of the things that city council person is most concerned with is the city staff. All of the employees employed by the city of Columbia, I believe in her platform, it takes a precedent over the people that are citizens of Columbia. Now that sounds weird, doesn't it? But when you're a socialist, you wouldn't mind it if all of us worked for the government, worked for the government. Yep. And that's that. Now you're getting to understanding what socialism is and who she is. And that is a number one thing she wants to do on her to do list is an audit to take a look at outsourcing jobs in the city of Columbia. Let me tell you something. I'm imagining to stop outsourcing, right? They want to bring them in as well. We do an audit and then you can find some bad eggs in there because audits always find bad eggs. Then you can use that as the reason why we should be doing it in house. I got, I got news for you. If we outsourced to a capitalist who owns their own company and is employing individuals who work by the decision of Missouri that they want to work and they're getting paid to do that and we've outsourced to them, that company will go under if they're not doing it well. What will happen with a city or a state or a federal department if it's not doing well? Absolutely not. It gets more funding. Yep. The bureaucracy does one thing, build itself bigger and maintain itself at all costs, protect the bureaucracy. And I mean, the more often we understand that, the more often we know where we is going. So I take a little pause on that audio as we head into the close on this thing. Wow. What, what an hour. What's supposed to go over an hour? I'm going to blame it on you. Thank you. Ellis Benison, floatingx.com. We got to run. My friends live this day as if it were your last. I say to you, hookah hey.