Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Email | RSS | More
00:00:43.92
Stephen Schneider
right. So how are Alan?
00:00:52.19
Alan Baltis
I didn’t realize how washed out this light blue shirt looks.
00:00:57.92
Alan Baltis
Okay.
00:00:57.91
Stephen Schneider
right so how are you alllan
00:01:01.27
Alan Baltis
Doing fine. got… got to Aline was part of the reunion committee for her 50th high school reunion, and that was this last weekend.
00:01:12.12
Alan Baltis
It was ton of work, and not only the weekend, but leading up to it. And so often, like after you do an RG or an AG or whatever else it might be, after you get a big project done, there’s a wonderful little aftermath that is so relaxing and so much just like, don’t know, bathing in the glow of, hey, we did a good job, and ah don’t have to be answering every email and…
00:01:34.68
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:01:35.17
Alan Baltis
looking for what’s going to go wrong at the last minute and stuff like that. So we also have a garage. Half of our garage is full of 39 different shipping containers of kitchen stuff.
00:01:48.66
Alan Baltis
You know, we’ve we’ve been getting our kitchen refurbished. It’s all the drywalling, all the everything got done to take it down to the studs. Then we did new insulation and all kinds of stuff. and The drywall went up. And now we have countertops and cabinets waiting to be installed. And that starts tomorrow.
00:02:04.24
Alan Baltis
So um it’s it’s an interesting transition, I guess. You know and i mean? Things for the reunion were very external and now things are going to be very internal. And so I guess the the murdery of it is seeing how everything was bought perfectly measured perfectly to fit together.
00:02:22.41
Alan Baltis
And now we’ll see whether, don’t know, putting up drywall that costs an inch, right? Here’s hoping that all of what was accounted for is going to be perfect.
00:02:29.28
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:02:34.62
Alan Baltis
cabinets going in, new appliances going in. It’s wonderful when all that works to like such an an amazing tolerance. And I just hope that it really is. Everything’s according to plan and everything matches and stuff like that.
00:02:47.34
Stephen Schneider
right
00:02:48.71
Alan Baltis
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this.
00:02:48.80
Stephen Schneider
right
00:02:50.58
Alan Baltis
We had um our street was redone, I don’t know, like 10 years ago or something like that. And they have this big machine that lays down the asphalt and they have big trucks that keep on coming and filling the big machine so it can put down the asphalt.
00:03:05.09
Alan Baltis
And like the tolerance for all of this mass, this weight of stuff is like a quarter of an inch. It’s just up to the curb where it should be. But the machine isn’t like barking up against it and chipping the existing concrete curb. And it’s very cool.
00:03:20.73
Alan Baltis
i don’t know does every person every guy have this fascination with big machinery but to see something that big will do something so precise is really well done america well done humanity for coming up with these things you know
00:03:33.65
Stephen Schneider
Yes, but arguably, ah i i I’m curious as to a lot of these roadway constructions, if they know, well, if we put this much down, we’re go to be back in five years forever.
00:03:35.45
Alan Baltis
you know
00:03:49.86
Stephen Schneider
doing fix up work. If we put this much down, we won’t be back for 20 years. But then the problem is we can’t quote, you know, a thousand dollars for this much, but they want us to do a thousand dollars.
00:04:01.96
Stephen Schneider
So that’s, ah you know, it’s that balance of, well, we don’t want to spend the money, but you’re going to spend even more fixing it over the next 20 years.
00:04:03.47
Alan Baltis
Right.
00:04:09.43
Alan Baltis
I share a lot of those suspicions when like two years after something goes in, you see the first pothole, you see the first separation, a crack or something like that. And it’s like, wow, you didn’t take that all into account.
00:04:20.99
Alan Baltis
This is how much asphalt expands. And this is the curvature what you’re dealing with.
00:04:23.39
Stephen Schneider
Right. or
00:04:25.07
Alan Baltis
And yet it lasted two years. This should last like happy in the way, you know,
00:04:27.14
Stephen Schneider
i think it’s a I think it’s a matter of we we want the lowest bidder. Well, work it so we can be the lowest bidder. Well, that that’s materials. That’s time.
00:04:37.48
Alan Baltis
Right.
00:04:37.50
Stephen Schneider
You know, put it in fast. Well, if we we put it in a little slower, it’ll be stronger. we don’t have time for that. Put it in fast, you know.
00:04:44.88
Alan Baltis
I hear you. I know maybe here in Cleveland, i don’t know the names of the people, but in Chicago, there were big studies that were, you know, already construction projects usually go to the brother-in-law of various different people on the city councils and stuff like that.
00:04:59.100
Alan Baltis
And that they did say to do it for um this price, it would have lasted for 20 years, and for do it, and like you would think, we’ll do it for 50% less, and it would last 50% less.
00:05:12.86
Alan Baltis
No, the tolerance is there’s there’s curves, not nice straight linear lines, and some part of that was keep everybody employed.
00:05:13.53
Stephen Schneider
it quarter. Right.
00:05:20.53
Alan Baltis
They had council meetings where they reviewed the results, and pretty much people said, we have to keep the Palumbo brothers operating. we You know, like there’s just a certain amount of employment level that we have to maintain.
00:05:30.52
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:05:31.31
Alan Baltis
And in my council district, I’m not going to tell these guys who have supported me for 20 years, sorry, you’re all going to be jobs after we finish all the roads. They’re gone. Well, yeah.
00:05:41.77
Stephen Schneider
right And me and my mother were talking about this. They were talking about the construction going on in various parts of Cleveland. I said, you know, Akron just got done.
00:05:51.86
Stephen Schneider
And it’s a big change in the interchange there at Akron with the roads and what lane you need in.
00:05:56.89
Alan Baltis
We noticed that, 77 going down and stuff like that. Yes, exactly.
00:06:00.40
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. and And they were working out for like six years throughout there and and it’s finally getting done. But now they’re talking about, well, this is to be closed off in this because we got more. It’s like, what’s the matter if they get done? You can never enjoy it because you’re you’re getting refunneled around and stressed because of the next construction project.
00:06:19.88
Stephen Schneider
And by the time that one gets done, this first one will need fixed up again. so
00:06:24.19
Alan Baltis
Right. and I have, by the way, fun fact to know and tell, the most recycled material in the world is not glass or plastic like you might expect. It’s asphalt.
00:06:33.74
Stephen Schneider
but
00:06:34.29
Alan Baltis
That when they tear up the old roads, they don’t like take them to the dump. They put them into the big churner chopper upper machine and it becomes new road.
00:06:41.27
Stephen Schneider
and re Relay it down.
00:06:42.56
Alan Baltis
Exactly.
00:06:42.74
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:06:43.28
Alan Baltis
So that’s…
00:06:43.84
Stephen Schneider
I, I saw a a thing in a science American or something like that years ago, this company invented a new roadway that they said could replace all the concrete, all the asphalt.
00:06:44.07
Alan Baltis
good
00:06:56.22
Stephen Schneider
It was like some high fiber carbon titanium, vibranium concrete. plastic or whatever, but they were hexagons and they would lay them out to however wide they needed into that.
00:07:03.41
Alan Baltis
Right.
00:07:08.51
Stephen Schneider
But it had electric and led within the concrete. So if you have like seven lanes and you need to close two off, you turn all the leds red and, and then that’s off or like in a shopping mall,
00:07:22.17
Stephen Schneider
a mall, you would have it with ah lane markers and stuff pointing where to go. And they could adjust that. You know, when the apocalypse hits Washington, you turn all the lights going that way, but not that way.
00:07:28.94
Alan Baltis
right
00:07:33.58
Alan Baltis
Get out of town, exactly. Yeah.
00:07:35.14
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. But it’s never taken off partly because I think of what you said. Well, we can’t do that. That’ll put all our construction guys out of work. and Even though it makes sense, it would be better for everybody and the planet and blah, blah, blah.
00:07:44.05
Alan Baltis
yeah
00:07:49.14
Stephen Schneider
Nope. Can’t do it.
00:07:50.40
Alan Baltis
You know, if maybe it’s a question of scale, I guess. I know that in smaller countries, maybe I think I read about Denmark or or some of the Scandinavians, they all seem to be very um intelligent and progressive about these kinds of things.
00:08:03.24
Alan Baltis
They now have roads that include like a solar power absorption factor. So all those roadways, which are like… um you They built it so that they are self-sustaining, that the the energy coming from that also helps, like you said, to light up lane markers and stuff like that.
00:08:22.42
Alan Baltis
Or they have it where they have canals that run around the place and they put a canopy over the canal that not only stops um
00:08:28.75
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. Dear…
00:08:31.08
Stephen Schneider
dear
00:08:31.56
Alan Baltis
operation and so forth, but it’s a solar panel. And so everywhere that you’re going to have, i just, I guess I love the smarts of these kinds of things. Long ago, which company was it? GTE?
00:08:43.62
Alan Baltis
um They had, where were they going to lay all their ah fiber optic lines to get the United States so that we were all faster in our telecommunications. We’re moving away from copper and moving to more modern things.
00:08:57.78
Alan Baltis
Well, they said we already have a road system since the Eisenhower era. We already have all these roads that they had machines that were like right along the road, a ditch which that would just follow those roads. And that’s where they put things in. And of course, you know, the the roads had already decided, let’s see, how are we going to cross natural barriers like rivers and and, you know, places where There’s so much temperature extreme that we really have to account for different materials here so that the road doesn’t fragment because it’s had a certain number of freezes and thaws.
00:09:30.80
Alan Baltis
And that same very similar things matter to where you lay all your fiber optic cable out. So I think it was GT, though I’m not sure. um they they no telecommunicated 80% of the United States just by that smart idea of we don’t have to do surveys, reinvent all the ways in which to do it.
00:09:53.10
Alan Baltis
Other people have done things very similar and let’s follow them. Let’s mimic them. So that was kind of cool.
00:09:57.55
Stephen Schneider
but, but I think, ah you know, we’re, we get dinged from the rest of the world that we’re just one big corporate mindset and that’s what America pushes.
00:09:58.43
Alan Baltis
you know
00:10:07.74
Stephen Schneider
So it’s, it’s the different way of looking at it. You know, the Netherlands, well, what’s good for our country? What’s good for the environment? What’s, what’s the, what’s the long-term beneficial thing to do?
00:10:19.45
Stephen Schneider
Let’s do that. In America, it’s like, well, ah how can we make the most money off of it? And, you know,
00:10:25.33
Alan Baltis
And in the next quarter, you know what I mean? it Well, I hope, like some cases are so persuasive because of material science and so forth that once in a while you get that big sea change that says we’re done with asbestos.
00:10:38.47
Alan Baltis
There’s so many people dying.
00:10:39.29
Stephen Schneider
Well, we were until they were reversing it now.
00:10:40.40
Alan Baltis
There’s going to be a lot of things. Yeah, I can’t.
00:10:43.42
Stephen Schneider
ah Yeah. Keep going. Keep going.
00:10:48.05
Alan Baltis
you see new buildings being built with like the white concrete that actually has just enough, I guess, silver in it that it prevents moss and mold and other things from getting discolored, you know, from the other way. And roofing is like that now that they have a little bit of stuff in roofing tile and things like that, that,
00:11:07.28
Alan Baltis
All the things they’ve done to retrofit buildings with motion sensors so that instead of building being lit up like a candle late at night with nobody working there, it they turn things off, like not only floor by floor, but cubicle by cubicle kind of.
00:11:22.06
Alan Baltis
and So those little things are where they they make the case up this little sensor costs, you know, two cents, and it’s going to save you 20 bucks on the year. And then instead of having to be, well, we’re altruistic, we want to save electricity because we should as a country.
00:11:36.20
Alan Baltis
It’s more than every company says, that sounds like a good deal, I’ll take some of that. And i I hope that that’s what’s going to continue to happen every time that we have interesting… not even breakthroughs, but just little evolutionary changes that it’s a persuasive case for all those big and small buildings, companies, storefronts, whatever like that, a new alarm system, a new solar generation system.
00:11:59.65
Alan Baltis
One of the things you might have seen in the last couple days have had a couple announcements about how the United States is determined to become the AI powerhouse of the world and I kind of agree with that. I really want us to be that every one of these and of course everything is couched in terms of war nowadays instead just being friendly competition and may the best man win.
00:12:19.29
Alan Baltis
And having said that, A lot of what they’re planning on doing to make that happen is um we’re going to play favorites. We’re going to remove restrictions. and like And they talk about it being red tape.
00:12:30.39
Alan Baltis
No, that’s the safety stuff that stops people from getting killed. That’s the stuff that stops bad construction and bad electric and bad use of the power grid. You know what i mean? they of The fact that we can’t seem to find it’s not only one end or the other, but some compromise in the middle that says, let’s get 80% smarter, but also 20% careful because it’s worth putting in a monitoring system and making sure that we didn’t, somebody fanatic sold us a bill of goods and 20 years later, we’ll, where?
00:12:49.79
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:13:00.54
Alan Baltis
Everything is falling apart and we still lost the race because we built shoddy. i I’m waiting to see, and this is kind of funny, I have so much criticism of the hypocrisy of the Reds that I i kind of can’t stand to see this happen all the time.
00:13:17.42
Alan Baltis
I talked with friends a while ago when solar power, when renewables, various different wind, and every other kind of energy was being touted, and there were some small, relatively small, government encouragement of that because overall we should get off of things that are warming the planet and killing all of us and get towards renewables.
00:13:36.42
Alan Baltis
Oh no, the government shouldn’t be in the business of playing favorites, choosing technology. We should let the market decide. And now they’ve shifted exactly to swing the pendulum the other way. Oh, no, the government knows best.
00:13:49.59
Alan Baltis
Of course they don’t. It’s not that they, and put it this way, it can be that the government knows best. They’ve had offices that were meant to advise the government technically on any number of technical issues, whether it was cybersecurity, whether it was pollution, et cetera, et cetera.
00:14:03.59
Stephen Schneider
but they don’t agree, so they get shut down.
00:14:05.71
Alan Baltis
and we yeah what What has happened? They’ve been fired. And so now you know that there’s not the smart decision being made. The seasoned, we’ve looked at 50, 80 years of data. We can extrapolate correctly. Now it’s just, hey, I got a brother-in-law.
00:14:19.33
Alan Baltis
I got a crony. You know what I mean? There’s no way that these projects are going to get done without there being incredible favoritism for building the data centers for AI, for building the nuclear power plants.
00:14:31.35
Alan Baltis
I think that nuclear power has gotten a bad rap because it really is safe in many other places besides the United States. And so unfortunately, it’s not only the reds or the blues, the no nukes crowd really fanatically stopped us from pursuing nuclear energy and energy and making it safe instead of being um It should have been one amongst many choices and continue to improve it. And instead we’ve lost how much? 20, 30, 40 years worth of smart development.
00:15:00.23
Alan Baltis
Now we have new nuclear power, where it’s smaller reactors and a lot of safety things built in. But we don’t have the track record that says, you know all of those nice supposed studies that we’re seeing?
00:15:13.27
Alan Baltis
We’re going to bet Chernobyl and Three Mile Island on the basis of 18 months worth of data when we could have had 40 years worth of data. So there’s just so many examples of fanaticism at either end of the spectrum just doesn’t work.
00:15:27.34
Alan Baltis
You can’t stop stem cell development because somebody is going to quote a particular book that somehow means you don’t use science to solve problems.
00:15:28.04
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:15:33.59
Stephen Schneider
Because somebody doesn’t really understand it and and wants to take control and spout. I had an argument with somebody that they live in West Virginia and they said, oh, I would never vote.
00:15:46.04
Alan Baltis
yeah You’ve already said enough. Anyway.
00:15:48.40
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:15:49.48
Alan Baltis
ah I’m such a jerk. Sorry, Wes.
00:15:51.81
Stephen Schneider
They said, ah I will say West Virginia is a very beautiful place and it’s not as bad as Alabama. So we’ll go there. um But They said I would never vote Democrat.
00:16:03.51
Stephen Schneider
I said, okay, why not? Well, because they want to shut the coal mines down. I’m like, that’s the only reason. Yeah. I’ve got too many friends that work at the coal mine. They’d be out of a job. And I was like, my brain’s exploding here. That’s your only reason, no matter anything else, they could screw the whole country up.
00:16:20.31
Stephen Schneider
But as long as they don’t shut down those coal mines, I’m like, at the time there were less people working in the coal mines than were working for Sears who had gone bankrupt.
00:16:31.08
Stephen Schneider
And I’m like, ah do you understand? I says, what about this? Let me, let me propose this because I agree with you. I think too often we’re like, oh my God, this is bad. We’ll go completely the other way and make other things bad. It’s find the middle ground.
00:16:40.89
Alan Baltis
right
00:16:41.94
Stephen Schneider
we don’t do that a whole lot. I said, what about this? What if every single one of those people in the coal mines was taught how to work and produce Some solar energy, windmills, solar panels, how to make them in the factory, how to put them on people’s houses, how to go and repair them, how to sell them.
00:17:01.25
Stephen Schneider
There’s a lot of jobs that could be opened up. More jobs than there are people to fill them from the coal mines. What about that? Well, no, they’ve just always worked the coal mines. That’s their job.
00:17:10.75
Alan Baltis
It’s a tradition.
00:17:10.95
Stephen Schneider
I’m like, oh my God, are you serious?
00:17:12.23
Alan Baltis
exactly
00:17:14.76
Stephen Schneider
And that and that that explains to me so much of our country right there.
00:17:19.75
Alan Baltis
I hear you. And I really, sadly, I agree because I’ve had similar discussions, like, especially about that. there There were all kinds of things about which various different states were voting on the basis of that single issue. If it wasn’t abortion, it was keep the coal mines open.
00:17:34.50
Alan Baltis
It’s like, so you’ve got a job that you know is going to kill someone 20 years earlier than they should die because of black lung. You’ve got mine collapse. You’ve got, um what do they call the the the slag pools? um This might not be the exact word, where when that um barrier breaks that contains it, it kills the entire area around it because that stuff that’s in it is so fucking toxic that if it gets out and into the groundwater and floods the city, you need to leave. You can’t live amongst all that heavy metal tailings and all that kind of stuff.
00:18:06.65
Alan Baltis
And yet those people are unreachable. It is our family way of life. It is our tradition. and And same with, i don’t know, Allentown, Pennsylvania, when they were closing down steel mills. It was, well, the economics are not there. The pollution is terrible. Yeah, but our family has been doing that for generations.
00:18:21.78
Alan Baltis
Well, you know you really are okay with all those funerals, all those, the blight in your community. And it’s kind of funny, all these, you know i’ve I’ve learned, I’m trying to learn, you know all the statistics and all the science that I can throw out um doesn’t seem to reach the unreachables.
00:18:39.71
Alan Baltis
But here’s a story. I’ve been to Virginia and West Virginia and we went to like the Oregon Cave system and they were following the new river to get home. And what you said, West Virginia is a beautiful place, but you know what? Not all of it.
00:18:55.21
Alan Baltis
You come around the bend and all of a sudden it is devastatingly awful. It is post-apocalyptic with the land is destroyed. you You can smell how bad it is in the air. You can see,
00:19:07.41
Alan Baltis
like mutated animals on the side of the road and I wish I was exaggerating but I you know i mean like you read about there’s fish that they they’re not like any other fish because they’ve taken this in and maybe that’s a canary in a coal mine type thing up if you do that if you drink the water that um fracking produces or that mining produces it’ll kill you it’ll mutate you it’ll really do you wrong and yet
00:19:07.51
Stephen Schneider
Oh.
00:19:35.81
Alan Baltis
when I looked into why is that like that, we’ve had cleanup projects where when they’ve uh strip mined places cut tops of mountain tops off uh denuded forests they actually had some smart things that said well replant trees and my god for once taking the long view it might not be that it’s going to be next quarter things are going to be okay but generationally you’re going to have a new forest here and so early on some of the big lumber companies and some of the big the places that did this archer daniels midlands which gets
00:20:07.60
Alan Baltis
They’ve been accused of all kinds of different stuff, not accused, found guilty of all different kinds of stuff, but they’ve also been part of trying to return some of the places that maybe it wasn’t enough that people were dying. They made it ugly, and now we have to fix it. Now people who live in the area can’t stand to look up the slope and see how devastated it looks.
00:20:27.01
Alan Baltis
And so there’s all kinds of ways to reach people with those kinds of stories of like, drive the new river.
00:20:32.70
Stephen Schneider
but some people don’t care.
00:20:33.05
Alan Baltis
You’ll see how bad unbridled capitalism can be. These are the places that they kept rejecting any kind of pollution control, any kind of safety regulation. and And look at this place. This will not be for hundreds of years. It’s like going to Chernobyl. It is unlivable here.
00:20:49.23
Stephen Schneider
But even then you get people that look at and say, yeah, I think you’re exaggerating a bit there and you’ll get the same people that go, what do I care? It doesn’t affect me. so you, you know,
00:20:59.21
Alan Baltis
I didn’t hear and
00:21:04.56
Alan Baltis
One of the joys of travel has been to get to see how beautiful the United States can be and to also be confronted with, we’re up in North and South Dakota and right next to the National Park is mining going on that’s going and and they’re you know they’re doing all the tricks.
00:21:22.03
Alan Baltis
This was up in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. They’re right next to the the border of the National Park and they’re angling in. So they’re going to all those nice seams of, I wish I could remember exactly, the Amundsen shale or whatever else it might be.
00:21:37.84
Alan Baltis
And so you’re going to destabilize the former bedrock. You’re going to frack it. So you’re going to affect the groundwater. This is stuff that was too chosen because of its natural beauty to be preserved for all future generations so that we can go see this, these badlands and these peaks and these, and While we were there, it wasn’t just during the day, at night, there was a glow all on that side of the park from the constant mining, the constant trucks moving things in and out. and There’s money to be made, there’s substances that we need, rare earth metals, that another one of those things that is part of the AI initiatives and so forth.
00:22:17.11
Alan Baltis
All those things and sweeping statements from everything I’ve read, It isn’t like, let’s go get the cobalt and the deis dysprosium and whatever else. It’s like you’ve got to take all of the stuff that it’s accumulated within, and that’s exactly the kind of mining that kills people.
00:22:34.72
Alan Baltis
It is loaded with toxic heavy metal type stuff, as well as these valuable rare earth metals and stuff like that. it’s kind of like you whatever they hit from space or however nature accumulated them, there’s a huge process full of care and science that you have to do to extract them safely.
00:22:54.05
Alan Baltis
And now they’re talking about, nope, we’re just, we’re going full bore on the various different mining companies are getting things. The latest thing I read, you this has been around, I was back in debate in high school. You never would have suspected with that being being a relentless geek.
00:23:07.76
Alan Baltis
We had things about scarce world resources and whenever it was talked about already, we knew then that you’re going to have to have computer metals back then it might have been something as simple as um platinum or tungsten or whatever else it might be let’s go get um ocean nodules full of those metals and we’ll we’ll bring them up and that’ll be a new source And then you read about the kinds of methods for extracting that are devastating to not only where it’s happening, but deep ocean currents that flow everywhere else. It would have terrible effects known and unforeseen effects because we didn’t know this doesn’t flow five miles away. It flows 500 miles away.
00:23:51.86
Alan Baltis
And all the little things that you kill not only adjust the landscape, but like, oh, we did something that killed all the phytoplankton. You mean ah source of food that all the fish are depended on and all the whales are depended on and all the food chain is based on these kinds of things.
00:24:09.92
Alan Baltis
and And we’ve had so many examples of mankind not really being good about let’s muck with nature. We’ve been watching up Planet Earth 3 and virtually every episode finishes with Here’s how it used to be. Here’s how habitat loss and devastation of various different, every time we’ve tried, like, let’s go to Isle Royale and oh no, the wolves are killing all the deer. Let’s kill all the wolves.
00:24:34.25
Alan Baltis
And then the deer population explodes because there has to be a certain number of natural predators. And every time that we’ve tried to adjust that, we suck at it. We’re terrible at really knowing populations and really monitoring and that
00:24:41.74
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:24:45.64
Alan Baltis
natural ebb and flow of those various different things because hunters want to have all the deer that they want. Well, you can’t do that with snowshoe hares because it’s, put it this way, it’s a complex thing and there is no simple solution and every single solution that I’ve seen proposed is simple like that.
00:25:02.46
Stephen Schneider
right
00:25:02.59
Alan Baltis
Let’s poison all this kind of animal because in order to um save our pineapple, we’re gonna kill all the mongooses, I’m trying to think what they introduced into Florida, that was not for Hawaii, an invasive species, and then they totally blow it, you know what I mean?
00:25:19.82
Stephen Schneider
right
00:25:20.28
Alan Baltis
And so all that is a way of saying, not only are we, those are complex problems, they take like generational decades of data to even come close to a solution, and that’s exactly what we’re destroying in terms of our monitoring and our ability to collect data I kind of can’t believe that we’re being this stupid systemically, governmentally, everywhere.
00:25:41.34
Stephen Schneider
did
00:25:45.23
Alan Baltis
Do we really expect good results?
00:25:47.48
Stephen Schneider
Well, okay. But you know, as well as I do, you need to define good because what is happening to some people is good. This is the good result. This is the better thing.
00:26:00.18
Stephen Schneider
ah We…
00:26:01.24
Alan Baltis
that’s extracting wealth out of, yes.
00:26:03.01
Stephen Schneider
ah What do I care about the parks? I’ve never been to the parks. Who cares if a couple trees get cut down? Look, we’ve got this now. that I mean, that’s the problem. You can’t just say it’s good or bad because that’s totally defined differently. And so did you hear and some of the parks now?
00:26:21.53
Stephen Schneider
ah You’ve been to enough parks. You see all the displays where they talk about the park, the history of the park, ah the animals, the flora. ah You know, you get all sorts of those all over the place, signs and things like that.
00:26:34.71
Stephen Schneider
Well, they are now having to take a lot of those down if they mention anything about climate change or if they mention anything about habitat destroyed or anything anything. So the only thing you see is, oh look how great our park is, but let’s not talk about how it’s being destroyed or we lost, you know, 100,000 acres or whatever like that. we’re We’re not allowed to put that up anymore.
00:26:57.98
Alan Baltis
Right.
00:26:58.02
Stephen Schneider
They’ve had to take that down.
00:26:58.95
Alan Baltis
I hadn’t read that, but and I hope hope, I hope, I hope that the national park system is one of the places that already back in like Trump’s first term, they were one of the few to just actively resist.
00:27:11.24
Alan Baltis
re We’re not doing the crazy things that you’re proposing. And maybe they’ll cut staff. Maybe it’ll be unstoppable, just like they’ve. taken over various different places by getting rid of the people and putting other people in exactly that, that are sympathetic.
00:27:20.95
Stephen Schneider
They’ll send ice after them.
00:27:25.25
Alan Baltis
The Chamber of Commerce is going to take over the national parks and all of a sudden it’s only what are we making at the snack stand, not are we preserving the animals and the natural features.
00:27:33.44
Stephen Schneider
Right. Right.
00:27:35.15
Alan Baltis
Hey, sorry about that, guys are getting clogged. We didn’t know. Well, of course you could have known and you chose not to. So it’s, i you know, it’s kind of funny. I don’t mean for letting the speakery to always be. We have to and go off on a screed, on a rant.
00:27:47.54
Alan Baltis
And yet there’s so much stupid. There’s so much evil being done nowadays that you have to be Stephen Colbert. You have to speak up.
00:27:54.32
Stephen Schneider
yeah Well, keep mind, only 2% are there.
00:27:56.08
Alan Baltis
There’s no, you know, quiet silence is consent. You can’t do it otherwise.
00:27:59.35
Stephen Schneider
So there’s 98% that we’re against. No.
00:28:01.93
Alan Baltis
Ugh.
00:28:04.23
Stephen Schneider
ah ah yes you know of us are there so there’s ninety eight percent that we’re against so
00:28:10.27
Alan Baltis
Well, I i sure am hoping that you don’t have to be brilliant in order to see the sense of, hey, if any farmer knows that you rotate your crops, any farmer knows that you have these three crops together, because between the three of them, they replenish the soil, they keep away the bugs,
00:28:15.14
Stephen Schneider
no
00:28:27.29
Stephen Schneider
But see, we can’t we can’t do that anymore because that was from the Native Americans and that would be a DEI thing. So we can’t do that anymore.
00:28:35.90
Alan Baltis
yes yeah or or you’ll like So now they have it.
00:28:36.58
Stephen Schneider
but
00:28:39.16
Alan Baltis
Hey, we can put exactly the fertilizer into the soil down to like the you a square two-inch patch and stuff like that. That they really have it that it’s all mapped out by satellite and all that kind of stuff.
00:28:53.12
Alan Baltis
And then you find out, well, does that preserve the soil? Well, no, it puts it in for that next crop, that one go. And you have to do that every single year. So you might have remembered this this is now, I think, at least 20 years and maybe going on 30.
00:29:07.85
Alan Baltis
They started to have crops that didn’t germinate, that didn’t self-replace. They had genetically engineered things, and Monsanto was the biggest bad guy about this, and especially not selling them so much here, though it was here, but also into Africa.
00:29:24.25
Alan Baltis
So that that was the forever, you can’t plant corn and then have corn for next year as well because you accumulate the kernels and replant them. No, you have to buy bags of new seed every year.
00:29:37.82
Alan Baltis
and And then they started to have things here in the United States where, um So that’s now a patented thing. You know what i mean? That if you have any of my corn growing in your field, you have to tear it out.
00:29:50.05
Alan Baltis
How am I going to differentiate between it? Well, you have to do genetic testing to see whether it’s got my altered genes in it or not. Well, what’s the cost of that? Far more than what you’re making from growing an entire you know acre of corn.
00:30:02.53
Stephen Schneider
It’s
00:30:02.91
Alan Baltis
And so there actually were some court cases that that said smart things like they didn’t steal that. The wind blew things across. They it’s automatically hybridize.
00:30:11.05
Stephen Schneider
it’s an act of God.
00:30:13.70
Alan Baltis
You know what i mean? You’ll take various different things that it the next generation is. It’s a combination of various different things that are around it if they’re genetically compatible. And so i I don’t think that story has been as much in the news.
00:30:27.43
Alan Baltis
But that thing of being like, we’re going to make it that you can’t just grow your own grain, make your own bread, the subsistence farming that had been done for forever in humanity.
00:30:39.49
Alan Baltis
They were trying to make, nope, now it’s a rent. Now you got to pay us for every single time or you’re you’re going to be dust bowl. You’re going to be no no corn. I don’t think they did this, but least also there was like a certain amount of if this thing,
00:30:54.28
Alan Baltis
like let’s turn away from seeds, Roundup is one of those things that they’re discovering, of course, that it has forever implications in terms of getting into the soil, getting into the water table and all the kinds of things that it does.
00:31:06.16
Alan Baltis
We found that out with, was it neonicotinoids? I think that were killing all the butterflies and like, well, they’re just pretty, who cares about butterflies? Oh, you mean the things that are pollinating everything beside the bees?
00:31:17.32
Stephen Schneider
Right. yeah
00:31:18.53
Alan Baltis
And again, like how many times we’ve just let, if you will,
00:31:19.65
Stephen Schneider
it
00:31:22.79
Alan Baltis
Capitalism without a certain amount of science and oversight run rampant. And then it it’s extraction. It’s not creating a sustainable system. It is get in there, make our money and leave the movie behind, devastation behind.
00:31:35.55
Stephen Schneider
And drives me crazy when I’m driving down the road and I see somebody with a Roundup can getting the weeds on their driveway because they’re too lazy to cut it.
00:31:47.58
Stephen Schneider
They’re too lazy to do anything more naturally to get rid of it. Cause there are ways to get rid of the weeds without using all the chemicals. and Roundup does it. There you go.
00:31:56.47
Alan Baltis
Exactly.
00:31:56.95
Stephen Schneider
I live in an area with well water and I’ve got neighbors using Roundup all over the place. I’m like, you guys are such morons. Yeah.
00:32:04.73
Alan Baltis
You know, if they just relabeled Roundup to say DDT on it, or you know anybody who knows about Silent Spring and Rachel Carson proving that it was indeed having devastating effects, and not only on eagle eggshells, even though that’s our national bird, so then we cared.
00:32:20.30
Alan Baltis
But just on that it gets into the system and it’s impossible to extract. Same with phosphates and detergents that were wrecking our streams.
00:32:25.82
Stephen Schneider
Now. Oh.
00:32:27.13
Alan Baltis
And all those battles are having to be refought because they just kind of like come up with a new version. They they relabel existing things. and And all of a sudden, we’re going to have the same terrible effects of…
00:32:40.41
Alan Baltis
And court cases seem to have a certain amount, but when you’ve got somebody that’s making us a billion dollars a year and you get a billion out of them, it’s like, well, that’s just not the price of doing business.
00:32:51.13
Alan Baltis
We’re not stopping.
00:32:51.26
Stephen Schneider
Or worse, nah.
00:32:52.18
Alan Baltis
We have to pay out. All
00:32:53.44
Stephen Schneider
they They’re like, well, we don’t want that those people suing us for millions of dollars. So, hey, Mr. Congressman, here’s some money. Could you make sure this passes that says it’s legal to do what we’re doing?
00:33:05.42
Stephen Schneider
Sure, I’ll take that money and do that.
00:33:05.56
Alan Baltis
right. all the limited liability for pollution type things, for gun type things.
00:33:07.34
Stephen Schneider
And, oh, sorry. you Yeah.
00:33:11.24
Alan Baltis
Absolutely. And the on the face of it’s like, so you really are going to say that this known hazardous thing that now nobody can say that’s a hazardous thing and it’s killing my children.
00:33:12.40
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:33:21.54
Alan Baltis
my All my kids have liver damage.
00:33:23.09
Stephen Schneider
We’ve done a study and our study agreed with us. So, yeah. Okay. All right. Before we go out too far, I’m going to change topics.
00:33:29.38
Alan Baltis
Yeah. Woohoo! Yeah, what a fun time so far. Okay. Yes?
00:33:32.79
Stephen Schneider
So ah tonight I’m going to a concert.
00:33:36.13
Alan Baltis
Yes?
00:33:36.74
Stephen Schneider
It is for Foreigner. Foreigner’s farewell concert.
00:33:39.97
Alan Baltis
Oh my. Yes.
00:33:41.35
Stephen Schneider
and You know, one of their big songs from the 80s, I Want to Know What Love Is all that.
00:33:45.33
Alan Baltis
right
00:33:46.59
Stephen Schneider
the The special part of that is that it’s at the Ohio State Fair tonight.
00:33:51.68
Alan Baltis
okay
00:33:51.72
Stephen Schneider
And there is always, if you’ve ever been down to the Ohio State Fair, you got groups of high school kids, ah band and choir going around and playing music throughout the fair.
00:34:01.06
Alan Baltis
yes
00:34:02.26
Stephen Schneider
Well, not only ah is some of the choir kids doing that for the fair, they’re going on stage to sing with Foreigner as the backup choir for that song.
00:34:14.07
Alan Baltis
That’s pretty cool.
00:34:15.06
Stephen Schneider
And Jason is one of them, my stepson.
00:34:15.45
Alan Baltis
Wow. Ah, that’s so great. That’s wonderful.
00:34:19.16
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:34:19.86
Alan Baltis
Yeah.
00:34:20.04
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. So, I mean, super pumped, super excited. The kid’s been doing so good in high school and he does, you know, he’s doing this and so excited.
00:34:26.01
Alan Baltis
yeah
00:34:30.10
Stephen Schneider
The only thing that bothered him, he got ah into the, the, um higher level elite choir as a small group, only the best get in. You have to basically try out, you get, you’re you’re still in the main big thing that they do with all the students that you already tried out for.
00:34:47.14
Stephen Schneider
But out of that, you have to try out and be the elite. And he was bummed about it because he wasn’t able to be on the elite and do the crew with moving equipment and stuff, both.
00:34:56.68
Alan Baltis
had to make a choice between the two oh boy okay
00:34:58.50
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. and And it’s like, well, Jason, do the elite thing, you know? Yeah, but I like my crew friends.
00:35:02.73
Alan Baltis
yeah that’s what
00:35:04.22
Stephen Schneider
and so but that’s a good problem to have.
00:35:07.93
Alan Baltis
Yeah, exactly. Colleen, some of her fondest memories are she actually was in the chorale that sang at Blossom, like with the Chicago, not Chicago, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.
00:35:21.54
Alan Baltis
And like that, just that thrill of being out on stage, looking out at the crowd, you know, 150 voices, I think it is, all joined and, and
00:35:22.77
Stephen Schneider
Wow.
00:35:30.100
Alan Baltis
she, it was electric that she still talks about like that might’ve been the coolest time she’s ever been on stage.
00:35:35.97
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. yeah
00:35:37.76
Alan Baltis
know what i mean? And I, i I’ve never been a part of a big thing like that. You know what I mean? I have, I’ve done my talks. I’ve thought I’ve occasionally sang acapella, you know what mean?
00:35:48.97
Alan Baltis
It’s like, I guess that’s shameless and that kind stuff, but, but there’s a real power in being, and she was, know, one of the sopranos that could hit the high notes.
00:35:51.54
Stephen Schneider
this
00:35:58.03
Alan Baltis
And so she, she didn’t have solos, but she was always one of the parts where people would comment later. Like that was just so crystalline, so beautiful. And she was, a part of what had done not only with the Cleveland Orchestra but but the West Shore Chorale and stuff like that and work got so severe for her that she had to give it up and now she’s talked about you know hey I’m a little out out of tune if you will I’m a little rusty but I think I hope that one day she will
00:36:09.73
Stephen Schneider
Nice.
00:36:26.34
Alan Baltis
just kind of dip a toe back in and see if she can still because there’s people in in the choir that are still at 60 70 80 still have a great voice and and if you keep it if you will up then it it stays with you and stuff like that so it’s a lot of work there’s a lot of practice and it’s not always the big payoff of being at blossom but she loved that experience so we’ll see
00:36:44.06
Stephen Schneider
Right. Yeah. I, I, I do miss it myself. I’ve thought about looking at some of the local community plays, musicals, because I always enjoyed that.
00:36:57.25
Stephen Schneider
ah Even looking for some guys to play with in a band, but I’m like, I I’ve done it and I know the amount of commitment it takes. And I just don’t have that right now. I, I, I would have to give up other things, which is fine.
00:37:06.54
Alan Baltis
know if can.
00:37:10.11
Stephen Schneider
That’s a good choice to make, but yeah, I just, I can’t give up some of this other stuff to do one of those things, even though I want to, it’s not strong enough, you know?
00:37:19.40
Alan Baltis
Exactly. So congratulations to Jason. That’s very cool. I’ll tell you we have a comedy show tonight, but and I didn’t know about the Columbus State Fair thing. i I really like Foreigner.
00:37:29.82
Alan Baltis
I’m wondering, like, if I zoom down there, you even if you don’t get a ticket to the bandstand, you must be able to hear them anywhere in the fair.
00:37:36.56
Stephen Schneider
it there’s still, ah there’s still some spots available.
00:37:37.96
Alan Baltis
This might be very interesting.
00:37:40.49
Stephen Schneider
I mean, if you look there, they’re in the back in that, but there are a few left.
00:37:41.05
Alan Baltis
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:44.32
Stephen Schneider
ah But yeah, you know, i mean, foreigners, not one of those top 10 classic rock bands, you know, but they, everybody knows a few of their songs, you know, and they’re.
00:37:53.94
Alan Baltis
Absolutely. I love them. I’ve often said when, you know, they came up like right coincident with Boston and Boston got tons and tons of acclaim that if they hadn’t come on.
00:38:00.29
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:38:03.38
Stephen Schneider
For three albums.
00:38:04.82
Alan Baltis
Yeah. For three albums, i unfortunately, because Tom Schultz was such a perfectionist, but just that foreigner should have, I, I, I really, and in fact, they’re one of those that they, they had a couple of great albums and then foreigner four with jukebox hero.
00:38:17.33
Alan Baltis
They like, wow, these guys aren’t going away. They’ve really got little good material.
00:38:19.93
Stephen Schneider
Yeah, they and they had some good solo stuff, you know, once they kind of fell apart.
00:38:23.43
Alan Baltis
Yeah.
00:38:25.31
Stephen Schneider
But, yes.
00:38:25.77
Alan Baltis
Exactly. Joan and Luke Graham.
00:38:26.62
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:38:27.29
Alan Baltis
Exactly. So i honestly, i’m going to go chat up Colleen and say, hey, you know we got the Trevino tickets for free, as a matter of fact. i I hope that the weather will be okay. i like it’s It would be a big thing, like on a whim, let’s drive five hours total to see a band for two hours.
00:38:45.28
Alan Baltis
And it’s foreigners farewell.
00:38:45.54
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:38:48.03
Alan Baltis
I know we’re going to go see Cheap Trick at like the Lorain County Fair.
00:38:51.06
Stephen Schneider
I saw a cheap trick once i saw sticks and yeah.
00:38:51.19
Alan Baltis
We got Exactly that. They’re fun, exactly. that we’re We’re still, as long as the band is not like, well, the roadies bought the name and maybe they got one guy that sounds kind of like the lead singer.
00:39:03.99
Alan Baltis
We’ve seen a couple of things that have been not sadly disappointing. A version of the Guess Who that was, is so much wasn’t Burton Cummings voice that Colleen was just heartbroken at what I took her to, you know what I mean?
00:39:10.99
Stephen Schneider
That,
00:39:13.49
Stephen Schneider
yeah yeah
00:39:16.13
Alan Baltis
But
00:39:16.28
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. That’s something to always watch nowadays is I look, ah there was somebody that was coming around and I looked, I said, well, okay, well it is the band, but this is all the guys that joined in like 2002. The guys that were in it in the seventies, none of them are a part of it anymore. So I’m like, yeah.
00:39:34.16
Alan Baltis
Right. it’s ah It’s a cover band that also just happens to have the name. You know what I mean?
00:39:37.74
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. Cover band that legally could keep the name.
00:39:38.54
Alan Baltis
That kind of thing.
00:39:40.82
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:39:41.50
Alan Baltis
Exactly.
00:39:41.72
Stephen Schneider
And not always the best cover bands sometimes.
00:39:44.74
Alan Baltis
ah that for
00:39:45.58
Stephen Schneider
I, I’ve been hearing a lot of cover bands and it’s funny how you can pick out the ones that are like really good and really like nailing the whole persona of the band and others that are just kind of mailing it in.
00:39:58.40
Alan Baltis
That’s right.
00:40:00.37
Stephen Schneider
And it’s like, yeah, or, or,
00:40:01.14
Alan Baltis
Right. i know
00:40:02.88
Stephen Schneider
there’s ah Sorry, there’s a couple Van Halen ones I’ve gone to see. And one of them, the band is really good, except for the guitar player. He’s the weakest one. But in the other one, the guitar player is awesome.
00:40:13.96
Stephen Schneider
The rest of the band is kind of okay. It’s like, would you just go join this band and we have the best Van Halen cover band?
00:40:17.67
Alan Baltis
and like
00:40:20.73
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:40:22.20
Alan Baltis
You know, I know that any number of bands, they got their replacement lead singer because they had been in a cover band. Like, Yes has that.
00:40:29.66
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:40:32.52
Alan Baltis
I know, like,
00:40:32.80
Stephen Schneider
Scorpions, I think.
00:40:34.53
Alan Baltis
Scorpion is exactly, you know, like, and if not the only the lead singer, the lead guitarist, like, you know, it’s, you can really see that there’s sometimes there’s an element of that that really stands out. And, and so I, I guess it’s, they’re not, we are not the only ones listening to them.
00:40:49.80
Alan Baltis
The bands themselves are saying, if we ever need a new drummer, this guy knows our repertoire, like nobody’s business, invite him in, you know?
00:40:51.10
Stephen Schneider
that Right. That’s how journey. That’s how journey got their current lead singer. Who’s been there for 30
00:41:00.23
Alan Baltis
That’s another one I was thinking of, exactly.
00:41:00.81
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. Uh,
00:41:01.75
Alan Baltis
That he’s really sounded like Steve Perry. And that is not an easy thing to do. That guy has a fantastic voice.
00:41:07.68
Stephen Schneider
Yes.
00:41:08.16
Alan Baltis
but
00:41:08.66
Stephen Schneider
um Did you ever see the movie Rockstar with Mark Wahlberg, Marky Mark?
00:41:13.27
Alan Baltis
Yes, I did, exactly.
00:41:14.40
Stephen Schneider
That’s essentially what that is from the the Scorpion story.
00:41:17.97
Alan Baltis
Exactly. The guy that, this is kind of sad sometimes this happens, Judas Priest found a replacement for Rob Halford, if I remember right, from a cover band, and he was really great.
00:41:28.72
Alan Baltis
And then Rob kind of said, you know, I wouldn’t mind coming back. And this guy who had like made it his, the love of his life, his dream of his life was to make it into this band, got pushed back out.
00:41:39.56
Alan Baltis
And, you know, I know you want to have the original if you can, but that’s a real, there’s money to be made. There’s choices to be made. I hope that he found his, that he returned to a good cover band and still got a chance to do that music that he loves, even if he was in the major leagues for a moment and then, oh my God, I called it back down.
00:41:57.66
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:41:58.95
Alan Baltis
You know what I mean? Ouch.
00:42:00.08
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:42:00.61
Alan Baltis
Ouch.
00:42:00.67
Stephen Schneider
And I wonder, was it all the band or was there some upper management record executives or something pushing that?
00:42:08.84
Alan Baltis
Yeah.
00:42:08.98
Stephen Schneider
You know, they may have said, look, we’ll give them a payout. ah You guys do this or we’re not doing another album. OK, well, the band can keep them and we don’t do anything or we get our old guy back and we can keep going.
00:42:20.100
Alan Baltis
Exactly.
00:42:21.74
Stephen Schneider
You don’t know.
00:42:22.67
Alan Baltis
Yeah, there it’s kind of funny. I really am not like a gossip monger, but you can’t love music and not read a certain amount of how things have changed over the course of decades. So the Eagles, you know, they actually made fun of, they there was really some hate in the band, and there’s any number.
00:42:40.09
Alan Baltis
Pink Floyd will never get together, but maybe they will.
00:42:42.58
Stephen Schneider
Are you?
00:42:42.93
Alan Baltis
It’s like a queen’s benefit because it’s for a good cause or whatever. And so,
00:42:46.54
Stephen Schneider
Are you speed wagon broke up for the final time two weeks after I saw them.
00:42:51.67
Alan Baltis
Oh man. And honestly, thank you for mentioning them. Gary Ritzrath had a great voice and great stage presence. and And always seemed to be having such a wonderful time on stage.
00:43:04.31
Alan Baltis
You know what i mean? Some people, lead guitarists, they’re kind of angry or they’re really like just so focused on the guitar. And he instead seemed to be just thriving with how the crowd loved hearing the unidentified flying turkey trough and whatever else it might be.
00:43:16.28
Stephen Schneider
Thank
00:43:18.25
Alan Baltis
And him and Kevin Cronin seemed to get along really well. But from what I understand, Gary drank a little and started not to be able to do what he had once done. And that’s not a…
00:43:29.05
Alan Baltis
an uncommon tale in various different bands from what understand eddie van halen like besides him playing on stage every other aspect of his life was a train wreck because he drank so much but having said that i there’s a sad sad video out there where gary richrath was kind of dismissed from r.e.o even though he’s so much a part of their sound and then they had out they showed him like playing in a bar that he was just invited up i’m gonna cry
00:43:55.36
Alan Baltis
on stage and he he was like He sure looked like the Midwest guy with the Lors Band hat on and just, you know, ah a good old boy enjoying it.
00:44:06.32
Alan Baltis
And then once he picked up that guitar, he was amazing. And that’s what, that’s, I think he’s dead now, but that’s what he had at the end was get him on stage and he’s going to be fantastic.
00:44:15.79
Stephen Schneider
yeah
00:44:20.40
Alan Baltis
He just didn’t the rest of his life together.
00:44:21.86
Stephen Schneider
Well, yeah, i’m I’m going to see Barenaked Ladies at Blossom in a week and a half, week.
00:44:23.56
Alan Baltis
You know what I mean? So,
00:44:29.42
Alan Baltis
They’re a great band and they had the two leads had a big falling out and they rid of even ages I recall right okay.
00:44:33.33
Stephen Schneider
Well, so, so yeah, Stephen page, I’m not sure what all happened with that.
00:44:38.99
Alan Baltis
Okay.
00:44:39.22
Stephen Schneider
They, they haven’t, they did play on stage when they got inducted and hall of fame or won some Juno award, or something like that.
00:44:45.52
Alan Baltis
Okay.
00:44:45.67
Stephen Schneider
They did get to go and play on stage. They were fantastic. Um, but the band has moved on and honestly, I haven’t liked them since Stephen page was in, um, but,
00:44:54.34
Alan Baltis
Okay. okay
00:44:55.47
Stephen Schneider
But the funny thing is i just saw Steven page back in March solo. Um, they were doing a gala at Packard music hall and that that’s all shouldn’t, that was a whole flop failure, of what was going on, but he did solo,
00:45:01.24
Alan Baltis
OK.
00:45:10.38
Alan Baltis
All four.
00:45:11.96
Stephen Schneider
I really like Steven page with bare naked ladies, but solo, he just doesn’t have the chops. Uh, the plane was very mechanical and simplistic on the piano.
00:45:23.36
Stephen Schneider
And the I mean, the, the songs were still good. You know, he played some BNL songs. I’m assuming it’s the ones he helped write, uh, that he had some rights to,
00:45:31.87
Alan Baltis
Right. And yet rights to exactly. Yeah.
00:45:34.81
Stephen Schneider
Yeah, not all the best Barenaked Ladies, but recognizable.
00:45:35.48
Alan Baltis
like
00:45:38.27
Stephen Schneider
But I just was like, wow, if I would have just come for him, I would have been disappointed in the concert. So we’ll see how B&L does.
00:45:45.05
Alan Baltis
Oh, boy.
00:45:47.12
Stephen Schneider
i haven’t seen him since like the 90s. So we’ll see how they are now without him and also 25, 30 years older.
00:45:49.53
Alan Baltis
Okay.
00:45:54.10
Alan Baltis
Yeah, I was really into them when they first started off, like for me, first four albums or something like that. Friend Dave turned me on to them. he was ah He always loved acapella music. He he was just one of those guys that like seems to, he and I would trade off finding out about new music. you know Have you heard Los Lobos? It’s like good when we go see them.
00:46:11.75
Alan Baltis
So it there’s Super Tramp is one of those bands that I’ve seen parts of Super Tramp and Roger Hodgson has got a solo career and and They aren’t as good as when they were all together, but apparently they had a real falling out and they’ll never do things again. And in fact, Supertramp is one of those like some bands that really seem to like up and up and up and hit a peak.
00:46:36.19
Alan Baltis
And then they like fall apart because they kind of say, are we ever going to get better than Breakfast in America? Every song on that album was great. The tour was massive. And then I think they even toured like two years later and sold no tickets.
00:46:50.95
Alan Baltis
And I wasn’t sure why the world had turned its face away. Was it right at a musical turning point? Was it right at, I don’t know, a bad publicity? Whatever else it might be But to see people at the height of their powers and then to see that sad version, sometimes it’s even a lot of the guys in the band, but they’ve lost something.
00:47:04.33
Stephen Schneider
Thank you.
00:47:08.99
Alan Baltis
They’ve lost the fire. They’ve lost the joy, the home, whatever else they might be.
00:47:11.31
Stephen Schneider
And that, that is so huge.
00:47:14.01
Alan Baltis
Yeah,
00:47:14.82
Stephen Schneider
And a lot of people don’t realize, and I’ve talked about this, unless you’re a musician, it’s hard to understand. And I tried to get my kids to understand that we went to a couple festivals like Streetsboro Family Days, and there were cover bands playing songs and stuff.
00:47:28.27
Stephen Schneider
And I would say, okay, how is this song? And they’re like, eh, it’s all right. I’m like, what do you mean it’s all right? They’re like, eh, I’m like, they’re hitting all the right notes. They’re playing all the right stuff. They’re like, yeah, but it’s just, eh.
00:47:40.16
Stephen Schneider
And then some someone else would get on.
00:47:40.73
Alan Baltis
Yeah.
00:47:42.54
Stephen Schneider
i’m like, well, what about this one? Yeah, these guys are good. I’m like, well, they’re hitting all the right notes. they’re You know, what’s the difference? And it’s so subjective and you can you can’t, tell someone, here’s how you do it, that energy comes out or it doesn’t.
00:47:57.33
Stephen Schneider
and And, I know a lot of people, I heard a band a while back, they were playing all the right notes. They were doing it all, you know, it was there, but it was just bland and you know, music has energy and it doesn’t matter the style. There’s different energy that,
00:48:12.94
Stephen Schneider
you can’t define it. You either have it or you don’t. And that band has to click for everybody to get it. And, you know, and sometimes I’ve seen Def Leppard on nights that they were fantastic.
00:48:24.62
Stephen Schneider
And I’ve seen Def Leppard on nights where I went, yeah it could have been better, you know?
00:48:28.95
Alan Baltis
Yeah, honestly, I’ve seen Yes many, many times. And there were a couple times that they were the best band I’ve ever seen. And a couple times it was like, boy, they’re getting tired. They’re just like you said, they didn’t, that night, they didn’t have the the magic. They didn’t make the connection with the audience. like and Maybe everybody goes through that. We’ve seen comedians, George Carlin, fantastic, revered for how good he was.
00:48:51.22
Alan Baltis
But we saw one time where the last half hour of the show was just him going on autopilot. He wasn’t even like pausing. He wasn’t acting as if he was talking to the audience.
00:49:03.82
Alan Baltis
He just was like, I got to get done. You know what I mean? it And bands do that too. That is the building to the big crescendo where it’s, hey, it’s encore time and we’re going to save our best for last and whatever.
00:49:09.34
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:49:16.01
Alan Baltis
They just seem to be, okay, here’s the next six songs that we planned and we’re going to motor through it. I don’t know how that happens. Styx did that once. that That I really, and it was,
00:49:29.84
Alan Baltis
like right when i thought they were great, like right around you know Grand Illusion and um Cornerstone and Pieces of Eight. They had like four great albums in a row and it was during that but don’t know, everybody had some bad clams that night or something like that and they wanted to get off the stage.
00:49:48.73
Alan Baltis
I’m not sure what it was. Moody Blues did that to me once. that was They were so bad that I was like, wow, i I guess they’re done. I guess they’re just done. And that was right after Octave came out, which really wasn’t a strong album.
00:50:00.53
Alan Baltis
And then they came out with Long Distance Voyager. There was a big return. It was like, like I guess Whatever had happened to make them so sad, they got rid of it. And now they’re back.
00:50:10.79
Alan Baltis
And so now I’ll see them again. you know what I mean?
00:50:12.44
Stephen Schneider
and sometimes it’s not a long-term thing. It could very well be that venue. Maybe they had a bad flight.
00:50:18.15
Alan Baltis
True, too.
00:50:19.58
Stephen Schneider
It came in rough late. They didn’t get enough sleep from the night before they had, they lost luggage. Maybe the hotel staff were rude.
00:50:25.65
Alan Baltis
Yeah.
00:50:27.33
Stephen Schneider
ah Maybe they couldn’t get a cab and had to hike 10 blocks to get to the venue. And maybe the venue was just assholes and, and whatever. And, and they’re like, you know You know, how do you feel at the end of a day when everybody it seems like the world is against you, you know?
00:50:41.63
Alan Baltis
I hear you. Exactly. You just want to get, I’m going to, you know, go take a bath. I got to get out of here and go take nice hot bath or whatever else it might be.
00:50:47.54
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:50:49.95
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:50:50.17
Alan Baltis
It’s wow. I, I’ve even seen it where like it was three bands in a bill and the first two bands were great. And maybe it like demoralized the headliner that they were just like, man, you know, these guys are eating your lunch and you’re not going to respond and like show why you’re the main act.
00:51:07.39
Stephen Schneider
And that’s one one of the things that turned me on Barenaked Ladies.
00:51:07.47
Alan Baltis
You know, what
00:51:14.66
Alan Baltis
Okay.
00:51:14.68
Stephen Schneider
The first time I saw them, the opening band was Cowboy Mouth. And I had never heard a Cowboy Mouth.
00:51:21.07
Alan Baltis
Okay.
00:51:21.30
Stephen Schneider
And I’m like, these guys are great. i’m I’m enjoying this. And, you know, back then they always had the CDs out. So I’m like, I’m going to get ah a CD.
00:51:28.41
Alan Baltis
Right.
00:51:28.74
Stephen Schneider
And I’m watching them. And then they’re playing and jamming. And like the roadies came from backstage and picked up instruments and started playing. I’m like, this is pretty cool. And, you know, that and I’m looking, I’m like, wait a minute.
00:51:38.72
Alan Baltis
Yeah.
00:51:41.01
Stephen Schneider
That’s not roadies.
00:51:41.07
Alan Baltis
That’s not the roadies.
00:51:42.41
Stephen Schneider
That’s Barenaked Ladies. So the opening band came out to play, or the the headliners came out to play with the opening band.
00:51:43.72
Alan Baltis
ah exactly
00:51:50.13
Stephen Schneider
And I’m like, that’s the type of band you need to be. They’re not showing egos. They’re enjoying the music. and and And I’m like, that band is so for me. And that’s, yeah.
00:52:00.02
Alan Baltis
um That’s wonderful. That’s great.
00:52:03.14
Stephen Schneider
It was good. and and And I didn’t even recognize them at first. i was just like, what is going on? And, you know, cowboy mouth, I never really heard of them again.
00:52:10.75
Alan Baltis
yeah
00:52:15.26
Stephen Schneider
that’s the one album I have. It’s got one or two songs I recognize from the radio, but you know,
00:52:20.56
Alan Baltis
Yeah, but the Bereniculating, every time I’ve seen them, they’ve been on a great show. They really seem to be having a ton of fun on stage. And when we saw them in Cleveland, they kept making up ah different definitions for what a Cleveland steamer could be.
00:52:36.83
Alan Baltis
And it’s a terrible thing.
00:52:37.38
Stephen Schneider
ah
00:52:38.23
Alan Baltis
You know what i mean? The traditional Cleveland steamer is a terrible thing.
00:52:39.09
Stephen Schneider
yeah
00:52:42.33
Alan Baltis
they kept… playing with that and um any number of bands it is a cool thing to be in cleveland and how many bands just get off on hello cleveland because it’s so much a rock and roll
00:52:51.75
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:52:54.36
Stephen Schneider
And BNL, they do all the little cutesy things. And like Eddie usually does some rap about, you know, walking around that afternoon and, and he does a little rap and they play to it.
00:53:04.20
Alan Baltis
exactly comes out from behind the drum kit exactly
00:53:07.67
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. And the guy in the drums, he goes near, far, you know, and just stuff like that all the time.
00:53:11.06
Alan Baltis
ah
00:53:15.03
Stephen Schneider
And I’ll tell you, i think it’s the keyboard player and the bassist are brothers.
00:53:19.32
Alan Baltis
OK.
00:53:19.67
Stephen Schneider
Those guys are fantastic and you don’t recognize it a whole lot, you know?
00:53:24.34
Alan Baltis
and that’s wonderful Is that the Keegans? I’m trying to think.
00:53:26.44
Stephen Schneider
Yes.
00:53:27.36
Alan Baltis
Right, Jimmy? Exactly there. but One of the things i hope we just saw, I watched a whole bunch of Weird Al lately. um And to to see how his band can play anything well is an amazing thing.
00:53:44.96
Alan Baltis
I mean, they have to kind of to the parody band.
00:53:45.35
Stephen Schneider
I told him that when I met him.
00:53:47.45
Alan Baltis
You know what I mean? And actually just and and after Ozzy died, I listened to a whole bunch of Ozzy. And then i heard hadn’t heard it for a long time, White Zombies, More Human Than Human. That’s got some great. And then once in while you get on the YouTube rabbit hole and the things that it’s recommending to you are like, oh, man, I haven’t heard that in 30 years.
00:54:05.80
Alan Baltis
I’ll listen to that.
00:54:06.34
Stephen Schneider
i i i i will I will be in a mood to look something up and I’m like ah listening to it. And then I see over here all these other videos. I’m like, oh, and I open them in another tab so I can keep listening.
00:54:19.76
Alan Baltis
Right.
00:54:19.79
Stephen Schneider
And then I go to it and i’m like, oh, and I open up a dozen more and then, oh, and a dozen more. And then I’m sitting there and all of a sudden my computer goes, eat I’m like, what the heck?
00:54:27.78
Alan Baltis
first
00:54:29.45
Stephen Schneider
could I recognize, oh, I have like 300 tabs open. I just blew up my computer.
00:54:32.74
Alan Baltis
ah
00:54:33.93
Stephen Schneider
I would have never been able to sit here that long and listen to those anyway.
00:54:37.60
Alan Baltis
that’s really important.
00:54:37.86
Stephen Schneider
ah So, and, oh shoot, was going to say, oh, I went and saw OK Go a while back. Another band that fits into that.
00:54:47.19
Alan Baltis
I can’t believe we had to miss them. And like, they’re not known for their music, but the videos they’ve done are just an, they’re the exemplification of how to be creative, how to make singular, wonderful, original.
00:54:57.40
Stephen Schneider
Yeah, originality. Yeah.
00:54:59.77
Alan Baltis
Exactly. So I, I couldn’t go to that. And I was like, this has got to have the biggest video costume, cheap whatever they’re doing. I want to see what they’re doing.
00:55:07.74
Stephen Schneider
they
00:55:08.75
Alan Baltis
man um oh no.
00:55:08.98
Stephen Schneider
They didn’t do a lot of that. Maybe it was just because it was a small stage or something, or maybe they just don’t do it.
00:55:11.95
Alan Baltis
Okay. Okay.
00:55:16.07
Stephen Schneider
it they they They did um some background stuff.
00:55:20.44
Alan Baltis
Okay.
00:55:20.48
Stephen Schneider
ah you they had a pretty good they They were doing some cool ah shooting things out of cannons and stuff. But what really…
00:55:25.70
Alan Baltis
Okay. Okay. That’s
00:55:27.76
Stephen Schneider
i went and saw ah cra Collective Soul. um A couple times and I was like these guys for a big band they connect really well with their audience and there are there were four songs where the lead guy just quit singing because the whole audience was singing and it was louder than he was for so I’ve never been to a place where four songs the audience is singing that much Yes Yeah, but they connected
00:55:39.27
Alan Baltis
one.
00:55:45.74
Alan Baltis
singapore
00:55:52.81
Alan Baltis
A lot of times they’ll do like call and response. They’ll have to like bring the audience in and egg them on. That’s cool. I really like them. I’ve never seen them live.
00:56:00.38
Stephen Schneider
And OK Go did the same thing. They really connected in the audience, just loved them for them. And it’s like every song they played, everybody knew it and everybody got excited. And at one point he was like, hey, you know what? I think it’s question answer time. So who’s got a question for us?
00:56:16.58
Stephen Schneider
and and And they were answering, telling stories and stuff. ah
00:56:20.59
Alan Baltis
wonderful.
00:56:21.05
Stephen Schneider
And I’m like, that’s pretty cool That that makes this special And then that makes it more difficult When I go see bigger bands Where they stand up on stage Don’t move, play it note for note Yeah, they play it note for note Like the album without anything different It’s like, I could have put the album on And stayed home for $60 You know
00:56:24.62
Alan Baltis
Yeah. Right. They were within a yard. Exactly. Right. Yeah.
00:56:41.01
Alan Baltis
yeah
00:56:41.52
Stephen Schneider
you know
00:56:41.63
Alan Baltis
One of the things that I really, a couple of quick things, when when places like Yes is about to do the Fragile album in entirety, and like, I really love that album, looking forward to hearing it. They don’t always play everything on it, so I like that.
00:56:53.47
Alan Baltis
But by committing to that, you’re going to hear exactly that album. they’re not going to vamp their way through it. They’re not going to an extended version of Roundabout because it’s the first, you know what I mean? Like Todd Rundgren, any number of places have done that complete album type thing.
00:57:07.67
Alan Baltis
And I’m always happy to hear it, but I’m also like, this isn’t what live music is about. There should be a surprise each time you break into a song. There should be your ability to like have a lot an extended solo compared to what was on the album track and all that kind of stuff.
00:57:14.70
Stephen Schneider
something.
00:57:20.50
Stephen Schneider
Right.
00:57:21.49
Alan Baltis
So, and real quick for for all of our men, you, Relentless Geekery fans, I can’t. empty You have to go watch the OK Go videos.
00:57:32.83
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:57:33.29
Alan Baltis
They are just like they’re one of those things where you can just feel them.
00:57:33.51
Stephen Schneider
Oh.
00:57:38.58
Alan Baltis
They start off with an idea and then they think of every variation on that and they find a way to work it all together. And then they think of not just variations, but how do we make this bigger and bigger and bigger? And they. they exemplify the kind of creativity and some of those things seem to be not hey we threw a lot of money at the problem and so that’s why it’s wonderful they were so clever at what they do they trained themselves to be able to like do dancing on treadmills to be able to to zoom around on um office chairs and then how what what could we do choreography with a hundred office chairs and like
00:58:06.33
Stephen Schneider
yes
00:58:11.72
Alan Baltis
And then I just, folks, you can’t believe how smart and clever and fun and cool these guys are.
00:58:17.78
Stephen Schneider
They’re fun to watch.
00:58:20.32
Alan Baltis
Yeah.
00:58:20.33
Stephen Schneider
It’s not just a band standing there playing and singing.
00:58:23.76
Alan Baltis
Exactly.
00:58:23.84
Stephen Schneider
it Definitely.
00:58:25.14
Alan Baltis
And similar to what said about Berenaked Ladies, nobody seems to have an ego in it. There might be that there are various different people that are the principal songwriters or the main guys in the band, but everybody in the band gets a chance to do the cool stunts and take a solo and, and you know what I mean? Like, they they just seem to really be friends that are going to go have a lark making this video. can Could we do this? Could we have it that, you know, um all these printers are going to spit out paper in a synchronized way I just, they some of those things, they must I wonder if we could do this.
00:58:57.71
Alan Baltis
And then they try it. It’s like, okay, we’re really going to have to get this perfect or it’s going to look hack. And then they make it perfect. And kind of like seeing the Chinese athletes at their Olympics, when you see ah million taiko drummers, I think that’s Japanese actually, sorry.
00:59:13.35
Alan Baltis
You like in unison, there’s just something very cool about the amount of craft and practice and and telepathy, synchronization that went into that.
00:59:18.43
Stephen Schneider
Yeah.
00:59:22.35
Alan Baltis
And that’s what these guys are capable of. They make amazing things happen. Sometimes they’ll have kind of a blooper reel where they showed they got two thirds of the way through and then something went wrong. I can’t walk onto the set or whatever, ah group you know, that kind of thing. And yet they’re able to reset and then do the same first, you know, five minutes of an incredibly difficult thing.
00:59:43.11
Alan Baltis
Again, perfectly in sync. They’re just amazing. They’re just committed to that, that, whatever um treasure they’ve created of, I think there’s probably 10 videos that they do and they’re and they’re not like, well, we did that, so let’s do it again.
00:59:56.89
Alan Baltis
Every single one is unique. They’re they’re cool in their own way. So folks, go watch them. okay I’m gonna go do it after we finish here.
01:00:02.42
Stephen Schneider
no
01:00:03.77
Alan Baltis
I’m gonna go watch my okay video and then go, okay, go videos.
01:00:06.61
Stephen Schneider
Yeah, yeah.
01:00:07.03
Alan Baltis
Really, really cool.
01:00:08.36
Stephen Schneider
They’re definitely good.
01:00:08.43
Alan Baltis
Let’s go weightlift. Let’s go up in the vomit comet and do a whole thing. We’re in space. let’s um i They’re just so amazing.
01:00:14.31
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. the The one with the dogs, ah that they do the whole synchronized thing with the dogs.
01:00:20.85
Alan Baltis
Exactly.
01:00:21.37
Stephen Schneider
They did a Muppets theme song with the video with the Muppets.
01:00:25.26
Alan Baltis
Okay, exactly.
01:00:25.68
Stephen Schneider
um ah I’m trying to think of some of the other newer ones from the last couple albums.
01:00:30.100
Alan Baltis
I’m looking forward to, there must have been maybe one or two that I’ve missed somehow. And like the first time you watch something, it’s even more amazing when you say, well, I like this and i know this and I know what’s coming up.
01:00:42.33
Alan Baltis
The first time that you see something like one of theirs, it’s like, oh my God, it’s exploding with creativity. They’re so wonderful.
01:00:49.58
Stephen Schneider
Right. And well, the like the the one where they’re in the car and driving with the things hitting all around the car and you realize it’s like, well, that’s the song, but it’s like a rerecorded version really driving the car.
01:00:56.22
Alan Baltis
Right.
01:01:03.45
Stephen Schneider
It’s not over top of, you know, it’s like, wow.
01:01:04.16
Alan Baltis
Exactly. That’s right. That’s right.
01:01:07.28
Stephen Schneider
Yeah. And the timing. Yeah. Yeah. Go watch it. That’s the recommendation of the day.
01:01:11.64
Alan Baltis
and we go
01:01:13.02
Stephen Schneider
right, man.
01:01:13.63
Alan Baltis
Okay, always was a pleasure that we were able to get together. Hope hope your mom was okay. Hope your car is okay.
01:01:17.80
Stephen Schneider
yeah
01:01:18.73
Alan Baltis
You know what I mean? that sometimes Like I said, we have things going on, but look look right now, our biggest thing is we found a mouse. Was the mouse disturbed by working on the kitchen? Who knows? But it was on the second floor of the house.
01:01:30.73
Alan Baltis
I’m like, what the hell? Did you climb the stairs? Is there a passage up in our walls that you were able to, damn it. So I put down traps, little bit of peanut butter. It didn’t take. Every other time we’ve had mice, they were all gone in like two days because we put down traps and they got, sorry, mice, you can have all the rest of the world.
01:01:48.34
Alan Baltis
I don’t mean to kill you, but we don’t want you in our house.
01:01:51.34
Stephen Schneider
Right. Just, just don’t, just don’t, don’t make it more of a headache.
01:01:51.98
Alan Baltis
Same with Am. but
01:01:55.79
Stephen Schneider
So don’t give them a cookie.
01:01:57.41
Alan Baltis
There you go. All right.
01:01:58.47
Stephen Schneider
All right, man.
01:02:00.19
Alan Baltis
Take care, Stephen.
01:02:01.30
Stephen Schneider
Later.
