Ep.239 The Queen Of Snark (Rita Ballou-Radio Personality)

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome to Mallet and Michelle. Buckle up today because Steve is in for a Rita and Michelle sandwich. There'll be so much snark in this room that we will have to open a window. Our guest today is Rita Balu, Radio Personality Extraordinaire, my friend and co-host on Coke Radio.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I feel like the two of you getting together, it's not twice the snark, it's ten times the snark. The two of you are exponential.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I feel for you a little today, Scott.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

I'm gonna yell to get some questions in because I'm not gonna get a word in the world.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

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SPEAKER_02 1:22

Did you do this for a living?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm a twin professional. We sweat the details so you don't lose sleep over them. Mallet integrity team.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Ah, absolutely. Well, today's guest is one of those people who never set out to become a personality. She just opened her mouth, told the truth, and added a little sarcasm, and somehow became Texas Country Royalty. Most people know her as Rita Ballou, Queen of Snark. She's a radio personality, a longtime fixture in the Texas Country music scene, and what I like to call an accidental celebrity. She has interviewed everybody, worked with everybody, probably offended a few people, and somehow made the rest of us love her even more. But underneath the quick whip, the sharp tongue, and the I said what I said attitude is Crystal Campbell, a woman I know personally, genuinely like, and have been dying to get on this podcast. So today, Steve and I are skipping the boring questions and have answered a hundred times. We're getting into the stories, the opinions, the chaos, the woman behind Rita Balu. Welcome to Maladin's. You know, who is that? I I did tell Steve that uh you did you did you get that from chat GPT? No, I some of it I I actually write. Some of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

The first word, the the yeah, that was that was her poor. Rita, Crystal, whatever. We're gonna just get into it. Tell us how you came up with the Rita Baloo name.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Oh, that's an easy question. Okay, there's an old song from a Texas songwriter who is a legend. His name is Guy Clark, and he wrote a song about Hill Country Honky Tonkin Rita Baloo. It's basically a uh a little country song about a girl who goes to the bar and starts a little trouble. And so I thought, well, if I'm gonna have a fake name, that's a pretty good one. And the best part about it is, of course, Guy Clark recorded the song, and then over the years, it's been recorded by Margot Price recently, Vince Gill, Jack Ingram, Randy and Wade. And to this day, so many people come up to me and go, Did you know that Randy Rogers wrote a song about you? I go, absolutely he did. Of course I knew that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

That's awesome. Love that.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Well, you grew up, right, a little town right outside of Waco, right? And um your dad worked for the prison system, right? Okay, he was he was uh, wasn't he a nurse? Didn't you say that? Was he a PA or NP or?

SPEAKER_03 3:43

Well, technically, the the way that we got there is he was in the military and he retired from the army at Fort Hood. And whenever we moved to Fort Hood, we ended up buying a home in Gatesville, Texas, which is yes, 40 miles west of Waco. And um, he had retired from the military and he went right back to work for the state, and he worked at the Mountain View Women's Maxim Security Prison in Gatesville, home of Yolanda Salzabar. Oh, that's Selena. That's who killed Selena. Holy cow. My dad used to do what they call sick call in the jail, and uh he would come home and sometimes he would smell like tear gas. Like, if you think about it, you're working with the scum of the earth, and it's your job to heal them when they're sick. And uh yeah, he he had some horrible stories about that. So my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Did you get your snark from your dad? That wit that you have?

SPEAKER_02 4:37

No, no, do you think you got that? Maybe Mama Baloo is Mama Balloo a little snarky. You know what? She is now.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

She's 84 years old and has zero filter and zero F's left to give. And so she's not the mother that I grew up with. Because you got to realize in the military, she was an officer's wife. She was allowed, she wasn't really allowed to have hot takes and opinions. She was just supposed to look pretty and have the kids quiet and show up to the hail and farewells and look nice and do all those things. But uh not anymore. She doesn't she does not care. But I think if I had to guess where it came from, it's from being bullied in the seventh grade. It was the thing that somebody, you and I were talking about this. What did he call you?

SPEAKER_02 5:19

A wet sandwich? What was that?

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Oh, no, no, no. This was in the third grade. Oh, that was in the third grade. When Patty McKnight had a slam book, Steve, do you know what a slam book is?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

It's a place where you write insults about somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

I have one next to my computer for me. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Yeah, I'm not surprised. Well, I have one that says people I want to punch in the face.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yeah, that's the one I gave you. Well, Patty McKnight had a page, and it was who is uglier than a cold booger on a paper plate? That's what it was, a cold booger on a paper plate. And the entire third grade wrote my name down. Oh. And of course, I don't know this because I haven't been with the cool kids enough to see their slam book. But the next day, everybody showed up with paper plates and they made boogers out of rubber cement and they threw the plates at me. It's awful, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

And that's where it started.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

It's it's funny, but it's but it's awful. It is sad. It is sad.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

So I think But out of terrible things sometimes come great things, and we got readable.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Well, yeah, that's probably a defense mechanism where you've got that snark and that, but but you're so incredibly good at it, the the wit that you have. And so when you first started, you were writing a blog at uh Rawhide and Velvet, right? And so through this, it's just kind of just like your your stories about being on Panty Row and Texas Country Music and the kind of the interactions that you were having with all of these artists. But did you ever see yourself as this kind of amazing writer? This is all before AI, but you're just an amazing writer. Uh-oh, I like it here.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

I love it here. I'm never leaving. You know how all this story originally, don't you? You probably don't know. Not a whole lot of people know the real story. No, I don't. Okay, here we go. Buckle up, kids. Um, so I worked for the state health departments, and then I worked for the city of Waco doing code enforcement. So technically, you know, I am what's considered a registered sanitarian, which is a really fancy word for being a health inspector. And um, what's funny is at the time I was working for it, it was the Texas Department of Health at the time. It's it's gone through several different name changes since then, I think, or at least one. And I would inspect everything for the general sanitation department, which means I would do public schools, playgrounds, swimming pools, uh hotel, motel, public lodging, and then I would do youth camps. So I spent every single summer out here in the hill country inspecting. There's so many youth camps out here in the hill country. And so at the time, I was just a huge, huge, huge fan of not necessarily Texas country music, but country music. And I kind of fell in love with a curly-haired fella named Dirk Spitley. And then I went on the road with him. Oh, not really. Okay, so we would just follow him around at the time. No kids, nice job. Really understanding husband who was playing so much softball across the country, he didn't care where I was.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Wes was a professional softball player. Slow pitch softball, yeah. And I know it's not a real thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I did not know that was a real thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Well, your first um, I guess, alter ego was uh Crystal or Christy with a camera. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Okay, so back in the day before, well, Facebook had just started, but it was all about the MySpace and it was all about the message boards. So when you're a fan of these artists, you would go into these message boards and you would talk about the artists. But before people really started doing this, Dirk Spentley was the first guy to ever get in the message board with you and write back to you. Every night he was in there. What do y'all think about this song? What do you think about that concert? And so we were like, hey, if Dirks is gonna talk to us, then we're gonna be in a competition to be who's the world's biggest Dirk Spentley fan. So you meet a lot of friends. I did. I met friends that I had to this day who just love music as well. And so, you know, hey, you want to go to Vegas and see Dirks next week? And heck yeah, this is back when you could get a Southwest flight for $79. I remember those days, you know, and um, so if you if you know Dirk Spentley, you know he originally went on the road with Cross Canadian Ragweed. Uh-huh. You probably know the song Um Free and Easy Down the Road I Go, Ragweed Rocking on the Radio. So whenever we were going out to see uh Dirks all the time, Cross Canadian Ragweed would open the shows. When we fell in love, we're like, oh, this is this is awesome. And you know, ragweed's not necessarily country, you know, they're they're crossover. They're they're red dirt, they call it shred dirt.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Okay, red dirt, shred dirt, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Shred dirt. So, um, and so that's how I kind of that was the gateway drug for me into the Texas country music scene. So here I was going to all of these different concerts and getting on the message boards. And uh, I don't know if you know this. Uh, I like to be a little bit of a cyberbully for weirdos. I I if you're gonna be a bully online, I'm coming for you. And I'm gonna make you hate your life so much that you do a 14-page soliloquy on Facebook about how Facebook is so negative and you need a break. I'm the person that's gonna run you off the internet because I don't like a bully. Because I'm uglier than a gold booger on a paper plate, apparently. And uh, so I would get in there, and with these fan clubs, that needs to be studied by some type of uh archaeologist, not an archaeologist, uh anthropologist. Yeah, because there is a whole underground world, or at least there used to be, with these fan clubs. And there were some weiros on there, there's some crazy stalkers, there's some mean girls, whatever. Um, and so I would get on there and I would bully the cyberbullies, basically. And so one day I was kicked off the Dirk Spintly message board. Oh no. Yes, oh yeah, it gets better. Little did I know that the person who technically kicked me off of the Dirk Spintley message board was Way Bowen's manager, right? So here it was, I don't know, probably about a week later, and I went by the, you know, my name was Chrissy with the camera because I did a lot of concert photography, mostly for fun, mostly to get to be cool and you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Where were you posting that stuff?

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Um, I would do it for the artist. Okay. And you didn't have your website. No, right? Okay, gosh, no. And so I go to see Wade Bowen at Hills Cafe for the album release party of If We Ever Make It Home. And so I'm standing there, right? And a gentleman taps me on the shoulder and he's like, Excuse me, are you Chrissy with the Campbell? Chrissy with the camera? I go, Yeah. And he goes, I'm Scotty Kay. Well, that was the name of the guy who kicked me off the message board. And I was like, he goes, I'm Scotty Kay. And I was like, F you, bro. Like, what are you talking about? I didn't realize it was Wade's manager. And he goes, We have to tell you. We only had to do it because we were getting so many complaints, but we love you. We think you are fantastic and we think you're so funny. And I was like, Oh, that's super cool. And so I kind of uh start a little, you know, friendship with uh Wade Bowen's management team. They were out of Nashville. I'm talking Music Row Nashville. Yeah, because they were managing Dirk Spentley as well as Leanne Womack at the time. So um, have you ever heard of um CMA Fest? It used to be called Fan Fest in Nashville. So we would go every year, and um Dirk Spentley used to have a huge fan club party. It was called the Last Call Ball, and we would all go and we'd all meet up, and it was just super duper fun. And um, so then I get a phone call from Scotty Kay. He's like, Hey, we saw that you're in Nashville. Um, do you want to come down and uh see the office and have a little meeting? And I was like, Oh, okay. Okay, and so this is before Uber, so I had to jump in a sketchy cab, which by the way, I left my phone in. That's a whole other story. So I get down to Music Row and it's beautiful building. I I walk in, it's a huge boardroom table, and there's the entire group from Rogue Music Management.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Is there a moment there where you're like, oh shit, I'm in trouble? Maybe they're confronting me with something I've seen. I didn't know what was going on.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

And so they're like, okay, so we have an idea. I'm like, okay. And they're like, well, we want to start a website. We want to start a website, a a blog where you um just write about the Texas Country Music scene, but it's all gonna be anonymous. And uh, are you interested? And I was like, okay, what does it pay? Yeah. And they're like, Well, we can't tell anybody that we're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

But uh it was like guerrilla marketing. It was like we were doing it, they were pretending to be something else and not saying that they were affiliated with it.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

But they were gonna feed you they were gonna feed me super secret, top secret information. Where do you think I got this stuff from? Yeah, okay. Um, and so anyway, we had a handshake deal that day, and then I went home. And actually, at that meeting, we came up with the name Rawhide and Velvet because in the song, because he said, What do you want your name to be? You gotta have a fake name, like a Perez Hilton. That's not his name, you know. I said, Well, I wanted to have Texas Roots, and at the time, Wade was playing the song Rawhide and Velvet. Sorry, playing the song Rita Blue in concert. I was like, to me, that's a perfect name. Yeah, because if you hear the song, like I said, she's starting trouble. And there's uh a lyric in the song. She's a rawhide rope with velvet texture. Rawhide and velvet. It meant nothing. We slapped it together. They uh went and paid for the domain, did all that stuff, and then I wrote my first blog. And here's what happened. I was like, who's ever gonna see this? And it was uh, I'll never forget the first blog was called The A-List, where I basically said who I thought was on the A-list in Texas Country, and then my opinion about them. And it was silly and funny. I was like, Cory Morrow's great, but he needs a pedicure. Because you know, because Corey always plays barefoot. Oh god, you know, it was just silly. Yeah, it was just silly and scandalous. Now, there were a couple things I probably shouldn't have said, but I don't know if y'all know this, but out there in the world, she's grown now, but Stony LaRue has a love child. So I said, Stony LaRue, fantastic voice. I'm just not gonna stand by because I don't want to get pregnant. You know, it was there were all time-in-cheek things, but you have to know to know. Yeah. And at the time, uh, well, still to this day, Cody Canada from Cross Canadian Ragweed, his wife Shannon Canada, is been their manager since the very, very beginning. And now she has a reputation for being uh don't mess with her girl. Like she's she's hardcore, but in in a way that she's so loyal to her family. She's protective, yeah. Extremely protective. And so that was the last thing. I was like, you know what? If I had to pick a favorite, it's got to be Cross Canadian Ragweed. But uh, I'm scared shitless of Shannon Canada. Well, of course, these guys up there in Nashville, they're sending it to all their friends. Hey, have you seen this?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

And they're sending it to all their friends, and they're acting like they didn't have anything to do with it. They're like, hey, we came across the city.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

We don't even know we don't even know this crazy person because nobody knew who it was. But because some of the blogs were so detailed, people thought I was like Jason Bolin's ex-wife. Uh, people just assumed it was somebody in the Texas Country News.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Somebody's deep in the industry.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Because how else would anybody know this stuff? And um, and so then I would do funny blogs. Like me and my friends would go to concerts, like we would go to the wormy dog in Oklahoma and and see Bolin and stuff. And then I would I would do a full recap of the nights, and I would say, Oh, it's a great venue, except there's no toilet paper in the bathroom. Because you realize I'm doing health inspections. That's what I want to do. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh so and then it literally took off. I would say, like a month later, um, I looked down and it was getting 50,000 unique page views a month. At the time, gosh, dude, that's no huge now. TikTok, you get a million views for nothing. But for an old school blog, that was kind of a big deal. But it got so controversial that all of a sudden I was told, we're out.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

No.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 17:06

They started this, yep, this train. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

And they wanted you to be controversial, and then you were, and they said, no.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Do you think they were outed like somebody figured out? I don't think they were outed. I think it was just getting so hot that I don't think um I want to say what I don't, I can't say way, but I want to, I want to say people, I think they got a little scared because here's the deal. I wasn't necessarily as controversial as people thought I was, but you know how the internet works? Everybody would get in the comment section and they would write terrible things like, This guy from this band gave me herpes or whatever it was. Where are the bodies, Garth? Pretty much, yeah. And so I I just kind of uh I was like, you know what? If you're a rich star, let's say that you're Garth Brooks and somebody posts a story about you on TMZ or Perez Hilton, does Perez Hilton delete every comment? Heck no. No. And you know what? If you don't want to be talked about, you got in the wrong line on career day. I wasn't doing anything slanderous, I wasn't doing anything derogatory.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

And they were feeding you these stories half of the time. So at what moment were or was it at that moment where you were like, oh no, people, were you afraid that your real identity had been? I was pissed off.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Okay. I was like, how dare you? But to this day, like I said, it took me 15 years to even admit this. I admitted it on two other podcasts. Um, and you know, nobody cares anymore. And I still talked to the guy, like we've been friends throughout the years. Um, but uh there's not a whole lot of people that know how that's how it actually started.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

So, but were you given the domain? Were you allowed to continue the domain? So they just didn't want to be associated. They just they they were afraid.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Did they make you sign an NDA or anything? I signed nothing. Everything was attention.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

They just and the whole idea is what they would get sponsors, uh-huh. That's how I would get paid, whatever, whatever. But you know what? There's a part of me that I'm like, I'm this little 20, no, 30, 30 something year old girl on music row. I'll do whatever you tell me to do. I love music. This is my life, you know. And I never I never assumed it would go any further than anything. But once they dropped me, I was like, you know what? Like Stoney LaRue says, if I'm going down, I'm going down in flames.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Is that where the whole uh Wade Bowen has a restraining order against me came about?

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Because I was also um the other band that I followed was because uh was was Wade. Like Wade and it was Ragweed and Wade, nope, they're relate, they're related, they're married to sisters. Oh, I didn't know that. Shannon Canada and um Shelby Canada are sisters. Wade's married to Shelby, Shannon's married to Cody.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

I didn't, I I don't think I realized, girl. I know, I know. Well, I've been I'm in here. Yeah selling house.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

How did you parlay that into radio? And did you want to get into radio? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

No, no, no, no. Realize I'm still working for the for the state, right? And I'm uh doing inspections, but during uh any downtime, I had this cute little pink laptop. And I would pull up to the Starbucks, I'd go in there and I'd write a blog and I'd go about my business, which probably should have gotten me fired. You know, you can't be like writing blogs, even because it wasn't necessarily my lunch hour, but nobody knew who I was, except for this handful of people in in Nashville that refused to have anything to do with me, right? And uh so it just got very, very popular. The first person to ever contact me, her name is Kelly Peterson, and she's been in radio for a million billion years up in, I want to say Amarillo, somewhere up there.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

And she uh sent me an email and she's like, hey, we love what you do. We read your blog every day. Here's an idea. Would you call into our show and uh do like uh a little uh gossip segment on Fridays? And I was like, sure, I'll do that. And they're like, okay. And so I called in a couple times and it was great and fantastic. And then her boss said, No more, because you know got a little too hot to handle, got a little too hot to handle, but that's what was really, really cool because there's a guy named Buddy Logan. Buddy Logan got out of radio probably about six months ago, but he worked for Townsquare Media up in Tyler, Texas, and he had a syndicated show called uh Radio Texas Live.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

And so it would uh it would air on, I want to say like 16 stations across the country. He's like, I ain't afraid of you. Come on, let's do this. And so I was like, okay. So I would it was it was more produced. Like I would call in, he put music with it, we'd have sound effects, I'd give the the gossip of the week, and that just got super duper popular as well. So that's technically how I got into radio, but how I officially got into radio, this story's gonna take a turn. Okay, so um we were living in Gatesville at the time. I was working in Waco, and um, my parents live in In Gatesville as well. And my father took his life. I told you, womp, blom, blop. And so at that time, he left me a little bit of money. I wasn't really happy with what I was doing. Because you realize when you go to work as the code enforcement officer, everybody hates you and nobody wants to see you, right? Oh my god, Christmas here again. Yeah, yeah. And so my husband, being the amazing human that he is, he's like, take some time off. Think about what you want to do. Just take some time off. And I was like, okay, so I quit my nice 10-year government job with the best benefits that you could find. I'm like, ah, whatever. I'm gonna stay at home and be a tropey wife. And I was vlogging the whole time. And so that's when a brand new station in Waco, Texas was just starting. They're called Shooter FM. The guy who was the program director was named Chris Austin. So Chris Austin didn't know him, didn't know him at all. Facebook messages me. He's like, hey, I'm starting a new station in Waco. Hey, we we love what you do with the buddy Logan. Would you ever be interested in um co-hosting a morning show? And I realized you don't just get a call to host a morning show. Like you always start at night and work your way up. And I was just like, I don't know how to do that. And he's like, Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you with a guy that's very seasoned. And uh, you know, we just want you to be Rita. And I'm like, people say that until Rita is Rita. Right. Yeah. And then all y'all keep dumping me because you can't handle it, you know. And so I had only been a trophy wife for about a month before here I am getting up at 3:30 in the morning, driving a Waco and doing a live morning show. Now, my co-host, bless his heart, he was from Texas, but he had lived in, I don't know, Ohio, Idol, I Iowa, I don't know, and had done radio for all these years, but he had moved back to Texas and he had taken over the morning show. Uh, and they had just flipped the station from another station. Okay, and so there's a lot to be said about having on-air chemistry. We did not. Oh, oh here I was nervous, I was insecure, I didn't know a thing about radio. A little green, yeah. Oh, whatever the greenest of the green of the green is, and um and I don't know, I I it just did it just didn't work out. I did it for six months, and um, and then I I told Chris, I said, Chris, I I think I'm good. Thank you so much. This has been a wonderful, cool experience, and made me realize what I don't want to do. But you're still blogging at the same time, right? You're still I'm still blogging and realized I was still grieving the death of my father. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

You know, so especially with this tragic yes. And so, but are on air, are you you have never um been on air as Crystal Campbell? You've always been readable.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Yeah, oh yeah, I've always been readable. But here's the terrible part is they put me on a morning show in Wacom, Texas, which is like the epicenter of uh Texas country music, and um also the Bible Belt. And they made me read the news.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Oh, geez. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

Why would you get someone who's never like no? I'm I'm here to talk.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

I'm not to talk about your opinion and your sanctum.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

I'm here to tell you about the the latest record from uh the Randy Rogers band. I'm not here to read the news. Like it was just awful. It was awful, awful, awful. And um, so the the day, the the day that I I put in my sorry, the day that I put in my notice, um I go home a little upset. What am I gonna do with the rest of my life? You know, I like I said, I was still grieving. And when you and you leave a job that you were doing for 10 years where they paid you a lot of money to look for rat shit in the 7-Eleven. That's like my job. I mean, all of a sudden I'm feeling I'm a burden to my husband, like I don't know what I'm gonna do. That very same afternoon, I get a call from a guy named Jamie Garrett, and he was the program director at US 105, which was a town square media, just like Buddy Logan, and said, Word on the street is you're unemployed. Do you want to come do middays? And I was like, I'm terrible at radio. He's like, because no one ever showed you how to do radio. He's like, We're gonna coach you up, we're gonna teach you how to uh how to track a show versus a morning show where you're just talking live. He's like, You're gonna be great at it, you're gonna be fantastic. And I was like, Okay, okay. So the week after that, and it totally looked like I quit to go take this other job, huh? That is not what happened. And so I started US 105 and I I love it. I'm I'm enjoying it. The only problem is it's full mainstream country. This was the year that Florida, Georgia Line blew up. Oh bless. And if I had to play the song Cruise once, I had to play it once every hour. Oh god. So now we're gonna get to the fun part. So on the back end, I had become friends with Eric Waines, of course, from Case Hades for a million billion years. I've known him for a long time, yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

So um I had to-that on the podcast on a few things.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

The funniest thing was is uh at Chef's Barbecue on Thursday nights was a music series. And um, because I worked for US 25, I had to go out there and do a remote before the event. Now realize I had to do a remote from like 11 to 3 when the place wasn't even open. Like it was so stupid. I would just sit out there by myself and I wouldn't even bring equipment. I would call in to the person working the uh working the board and we'll do we'd do cut ins. It was just ridiculous. But long story much longer, one of those nice Eric Rains was out there, right? I knew Eric Greens was like, oh my god, that's Eric Rains in the white jeans from Case Casa, right? In the white jeans, and so I walked over to him and did he carry around his drumsticks? No, he did not. So I walk over to him and I was like, Hi, Eric Reigns, I love you so much. You're so great. I've been listed to you for years. He's like, Okay, cool, thanks. Like he did not care. Blew me off, but I was like, uh-uh, bro. Yeah. So I walk over to him. At the time, I had these little stickers and they said raw hide and velvet on him. And it was a girl in a bathtub. And so that was my merge. So I walked over to him and he was talking to people. Like it might have been, it was a Sony LaRue show, and it might have been Stony's band. And again, at this point, people don't really know. They kind of do, but they don't. I hate that you are Rita Blue. Yeah, they know there's a Rita Blue, they know she's working in radio. They don't know because you know, I don't like my picture places. And so uh I walked up to him, I handed him the sticker, and I walked off. He chased me down. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to blow you off right up. He goes, please don't write things bad about me.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

That's what I was doing. Oh my god, I touched a flame. I gotta go.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

I'm going into the bathroom right now and rooting it.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Oh my gosh, please don't say anything nasty about me.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

So we became really, really good friends. And honestly, he's probably my best friend today. I talked to him more than I talked to any other human other than my husband. And so uh he said, Look, here's the deal. We're working on something. And he was in a non-compete, so he couldn't really just leave to go from one station to the next. So he had to lay low for a while, where him and Bob Cole and Jason Nassure were coming up with the idea of bringing Coke FM back on the air. Right. He goes, Give me a year and I'm gonna put you on the air. And I was like, Well, doing what? He's like, nope, it's gonna be Rita and Rains. We're gonna do an afternoon show. It's basically gonna be like a uh short form morning show. We're gonna interview artists, it's gonna be fantastic, it's gonna be me and you. And I was like, Okay. And we had chemistry, you know, and it was like a brother-sister relationship because I just talk mad shit to Eric all the time because he's the most vain man I've ever met. So I'll just walk in and go, oh, you look terrible today. And it's like destroys and it's so fun, it's so fun or so easy. And um, so anyway, and so about a year later, he called me up. He goes, You ready? I go, Okay, what you gonna pay me? He's like, I can pay you twelve hundred dollars a month. I was like, okay, okay, dokie. So uh it worked out perfectly because at the time my husband, who was a drug dealer, yeah, he's a drug dealer, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Yeah, uh medical sales.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Yeah, pharmaceutical sales. And he had been offered a position in the Austin area. And so everything, it was just one of those times where the the stars aligned. Yeah. And um, so I start I started, we moved to Huddho, Texas, and uh I started on Coke.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

And you started going to the the sketchy studio over by the uh the shooter. Yeah, in the ghetto, the shooter, the shooter high school.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Yes, until we moved over close to the Hills Cafe. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Old airport, right? I can try to remember the address. What was it? I just remember how to get there.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Yeah, I can't I I can tell you how to get there. It was up north and to the east.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Was that was that the same era that Sammy all red and Bob Cole were on the air in the morning?

SPEAKER_02 30:52

That is no Bob and Barrick did the morning show. That was when it was right before so Sam Sam got fired.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Then Bob and Eric were run were doing the morning show, and then that's when that's when Coke happened. Yeah. I remember going to the studio in the morning, and they were like, Don't come early in the morning, like, wait till somebody else is there so you could walk up.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

I used to laugh because when I would get off work almost every Friday, that just happened to be the day I needed to put gas in my car. And there was a gas station right there, like steps away. So every Friday I'd go and get gas. And every Friday the same homeless lady would tell me, My car broke down down the road. And finally, I said, Yeah, I was like, No, it didn't. You're here every single Friday. What are you talking about? Here, take your money and leave me alone, lady.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

So I want to ask you, um, what would your enemies say is your greatest strength? Oh gosh, do I have enemies?

SPEAKER_03 31:50

I mean, you know, you think maybe faux enemies, right? We only had one real enemy, and that was Casey Donahue's wife. We're not gonna talk about that today. I love that she just names people, right? Melinda, Melinda. But you know what? We haven't had beef in, I don't know, 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Like, we're cool. I mean, I don't think we're cool. Okay, so maybe not enemies. Maybe enemies is too strong of a word, but that people that you've written about that they haven't necessarily liked what you've written about them. What do you think they say? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

I don't think there's a single person out there that I've ever done anything negative about that wouldn't accept the fact and not say that I wasn't a huge fan of Texas country music. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they they can never take that away from me.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

So it's almost like if you are offering any criticism, it's out of love.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

It's out of love, out of love for the genre. For the genre, but not for them.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Yeah, no, no, not for them. But just to say, hey, here's how you could do better, here's what you're falling down on.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

And I've had so many artists over the years that were like, you know what, you came around at a time where we were taking ourselves so seriously. That was one of my questions. We're taking ourselves so seriously, and we needed somebody to, you know, kind of not necessarily put us in our place, but just give us a little reality check that you know what, at the end of the day, we're not Garth and we're not George Straits.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah. Do you feel like uh country music is not as real as it used to be? It's gotten too serious, it's gotten too business-like.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Um, hmm. Well, I think with the uh with the TikTok revolution, there are a lot of these kids who have never been on the road. They don't have their chops. They they they don't really know what to do. They get online, they do a couple songs, they go viral, and now the music labels, they don't care about your body of work, about your songwriting. They're like, hey, you're getting a million views a day. We can sell you. So they're taking these young kids, they're putting them out on these million-dollar tours, and then they're dropping off left and right, going to rehab.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

That's like a flash in the pan, right? That like they get a good year out of them and then they're burned out and they move along.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

I mean, I'm not gonna name names, but there have been so many just recently who uh, you know, literally have have walked away because they needed to go to rehab.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. Is there anybody that you've um interviewed before that you refuse to interview again?

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Oh my goodness. Okay, well, this you're not gonna know this guy. But there is. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Was he?

SPEAKER_03 34:14

Have you ever heard of the the Texas, not I'm sorry, not Texas, the mainstream country duo called Thompson Square? Yes, oh yeah. I've never uh yeah, that guy's an asshole. You interviewed him and Eric and I did, and it was one of those situations where he was playing a charity event at ACL. He didn't want to do it, they have to do this, they're contractually obligated, and we've got to talk about the event, and and nobody wanted to be there. And um, so we called up, and you know, Eric is so smooth, and Eric doesn't prepare. He's like, it's organic, we're gonna have a conversation. He's such a professional, and then I'm the one that asks the silly questions, right? It's it's a good back and forth. And um, Eric was trying to everything. He's like, So tell us where you are right now. Meeting, you know, are you on the road? Are you in Nashville? He's like, I'm at my house.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

We've had yeah, we've had a few interviews like that. Like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

But you know who else I will never interview again? Tyler Childers. Oh, really? Really? Really.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

He was an asshole.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

He was just I don't know if he was having a bad day. Um, I don't know if he was just upset that he had to do this interview. This is before he really, really hit it big. We had booked him to play at our uh South by Southwest showcase. So he had to um, you know, do the stupid dog and pony show and uh crickets. So tell us, do you like Austin? Yeah. I don't know if he was hungover, I don't know if he was socially awkward, I don't know if he just got in the wrong line on career day and uh didn't want to do singing dance dog and pony show.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

But I'll never be able to some of the artists probably are just they just suck at that.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Well, he's a serious songwriter guy, yeah. You know what I mean? And he doesn't there's a lot of these these artists when they they hear about radio, they're like, oh yeah, stick around for the phrase that pays. Like they don't like they don't want to play the game. And I don't blame them because they're like, hey, you don't even play my music. Why do I have to come in here and and and dance like a monkey? Or or turn turn what I say into a sound bite.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

You think some manager somewhere would go, look, this is this all helps with the brand here that we're trying to grow.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

And so we've we've interviewed some people before, whether it's politicians or musicians, and Steve and I are like, okay, they these they need media training. Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

There's yeah, and that's why they put these kids out on radio tour, you know, to kind of they have to get their chops as well. It's all part of it.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

You know, part of the interview sometimes is you hand somebody, you throw up this gentle question that they can just, you know, big expansion on and get a long talk out of it, and like you say, they get a no, that doesn't work, and then then they just stop. And you you you want them to be very vocal, and that's their their time to pitch themselves, and they don't do it.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

You know, we everybody has a different personality. Well, some people are extroverts and some of these serious songwriter guys, they're just not.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

We were uh we were fortunate enough to be the his first media interview, uh Ty Myers, and he had the flu that day. He probably had like over a hundred temperature and his sister, his sister was sitting here, and but I think he was big because of us. He was big because no, but I think that he did so well, and I think it's because he grew up with his father and yeah, and so he kind of just was a sponge to that kind of information and and how to answer the questions, even though there's one picture of him, he's just sitting there and you look at that poor kid, he's just like, I just kind of showed up though.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

He didn't he showed up, he did a great interview with us, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Which you know what? This is your job. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

And that's what somebody needs to tell them. This is your job. When you are sitting there in front of the mic and you're talking to somebody and they're and people are listening, that's your job. That's what you're supposed to do. They just think I think some of them just think, no, my job is to stand up on stage and play music. But that's honestly, in today's age, that's half of it.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

And there are a lot of I'm not gonna say bad DJs out there, but there are a lot of guys that have been doing this for a million years and and they're above listening to the kid's music before he comes, yeah, he comes in, and they're they're uh they're above it. And and you don't know if maybe that guy had a terrible experience earlier in the day, blah, blah, blah. I I don't know. There's there's different things.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

I'm not all gonna be, you know, uh home runs. It just it doesn't work that way. But Michelle and I had a moment when we were doing a podcast where we the the guest left and it was terrible. It was the absolute terrible interview. And I looked at Michelle and I said, That that guy wasn't very good at being interviewed, but the reason that that whole interview sucked was because of the prepared. Well, we were prepared, but we need to figure out a way to get those people to at least engage somehow. Yeah, and that's true.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

Yeah, that's true. Well, and there's about interviewing. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Well, that's the one thing Bob Cole taught me. He's like, um, when you ask a question, don't be thinking about your next question. Listen to what they have to say, and then it will organically you'll come up with another question. And then when you're done, you move on to the next subject. That's what Eric and Bob are really, really good at.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

We kind of did that. The I guess the mistake that that we were making early on was the pause was uncomfortable for us. Oh, sometimes you need the pause. Exactly. And we learn that.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

It took us a little while to figure that out. Like sometimes, because we always thought that if you even had a second of dead air, that was bad. And now we've had some where somebody struggles for seven, eight, ten seconds to come up with the answer. But that's powerful because the answer they're trying to come up with is something really big.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Yeah, and if I'm filling in, I'm filling in that gap, it's that's that's a hundred percent on me. One of the questions that I have for you, I remember you were asking me the other day, oh, do no, who was it? It was Scotty. Do you have a list of questions, you know, for reading? And I said, you know, I like to kind of be a little prepared. And in one sense, I, you know, I I organically I like the questions just to kind of come. But one that really struck out to me is is there anything that genuinely hurts your feelings? Even though people think you don't have any.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

I don't mind if you come for me because I'm not perfect. And, you know, if I come for you, it's only fair that you come for me back. I get offended when your comeback is lame. If all you can say is you're a fat bitch, then yeah, I'm insulted that you're not creative. I'm not, I'm not insulted that you called me fat. I got a mirror, but I'm insulted that you couldn't come up with something better than that because I'm pretty good at it.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

And if you're gonna think you're gonna go toe to toe with me, I'd be afraid to argue with you over that. Yeah, that would uh I would be like, nope, I don't think I can compete in that arena.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

But I don't go looking for arguments.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

No, I know. I yeah, I get it. If but if somebody knocks on your door and wants to argue with you, you're not bashful about giving it to me.

SPEAKER_03 40:49

Just last night, I was in the car driving home from an event and I was kind of bored. And I like to consider myself the Robin Hood of Cyberbullies because I get really annoyed with just dumb comments. Like Casey Musgraves put out this video. Well, she's naked because she's Casey Musgrave, she's always naked. Is that the one where she's uh pushing the shopping cart? No, no, no, no. This one is called Mexican, it just drives Mexican honey. I like that song. I like that song. And uh, I mean, she's butt booty naked with a parrot. And um, of course, I haven't seen that one. But here's the especially whenever I do Coke blogs, I don't normally fight on the Coke account unless I really want to fight on the Coke account. I just let I let our our followers do most of the fighting because I like we talked about earlier at lunch, I love a churl. Um, but I get annoyed when like these, I don't want to say boomers, but when your grandpa's at home and all he writes is who question mark. Bitch, please, you know who Casey Musgrades is. Shut up. But this guy last night, Kevin. Now I follow all the the country music science because this is what I do. Yeah, I need I need show prep and I need to find things that I want to blog about. I go to Taste of Country, Kevin wrote who and the question question mark. Then I went to country now, Kevin wrote who with the same Kevin, it's the same guy. And then it was one more page. I don't know, it might have been the boot.com. And he wrote who. I was like, nope, I'm done. Yeah. I was like, Kevin, you sure do like to go and write why on the SBC page. This is the third time you've said the word why. And let's be honest, you would drink her bathwater with your little incel comments because nobody's buying it. But my favorite thing is, oh, my favorite thing is, well, just recently, I keep mentioning Garth for some reason, but you know, he announced his arena too. Yes. And of course, everybody's in the comment, you couldn't pay me to go. And but my favorite is I'm so sick of seeing these Garth um post everywhere I go. And then I'm like, okay, Susan, let me explain to you how an algorithm works because the more you say it, the more you're gonna see it. Mark Zuckerberg can't read your comment, but the magical algorithm just sees that you keep commenting, so they're gonna start feeding you more stories about the Taylor Swift wedding or whatever it is. So congratulate congratulations, you just blamed yourself.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

She did one one night. It was we were texting each other and she was responding to this one guy and only um song lyrics. And it was like, do you remember that? I do, but I can't remember what what our I don't even remember what it was about, but just like he had no idea what was going on. He kept fighting back. Well, now because like Rita and I are connected to like whenever she posts something, it'll say Rita Blue just did something, and I'll and I'll go in there like, oh yeah, that's yeah, and that was probably on the Kunk account too. Yeah, that was.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Since you're on the air so much, um, do you ever touch on politics?

SPEAKER_03 43:37

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

So you stay away from that. Like if it's brought up or somebody mentions it, you just never know.

SPEAKER_03 43:42

I'll throw in a political joke here and there for both sides, you know, oh Joe Biden, his brain was mush, or Donald Trump, he's orange. Like, but I won't know because that's that's the perfect way to alienate 50% of your listeners.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

We've struggled with that because I feel like we have kind of played both sides of that. 'Cause you know, there are sometimes there's a good joke there and we and we'll throw it out there, but somebody hates on us for that. And I but I don't want to stay away from it because it's an interesting conversation. So we have struggled, but most of the hate that we have gotten has been b been because of a political change.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

Well, in a town like Dripping Springs, I can see I can see that as well. But I just always follow the rule of Dolly Parton. You don't know how she feels about politics. And she said that, well, maybe later in life. But uh, she's always said in interviews, I think it was Barbara Walters, she's like, people don't want to get their political advice from me. I just want to sing some songs.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Well, and we don't, we're not giving political advice. We've had some people on the show that we have intentionally invited because we know they have a completely different life view and political view that we've got to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

Well, that's how you learn.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

And I have learned so much from those people. I love it when they come in.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

And the really uh the the ones that we really, really, really want, they will not come on. The ones that will go after us on social media, they will not come on. And they just keep they just say whatever they want to say. And you we were talking at lunch today. It's like it just it just feeds the haters. And you know, and I'm like, you sound fun, you know, you you totally sound fun. I I I'm I want to know, do you think that there's a fine line between being funny, being honest, and being an asshole? And this is like for all of us, not you personally, it's like for all of us, it's like the can can you Well, there's satire in being an asshole, but you can take it too far, can't you?

SPEAKER_03 45:27

Sure. I mean, I I'm trying to I'm trying to think of a good example of someone other than me who might do that.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Um, do you feel like has there been I guess there's been a time like when I've said something and afterwards I've told Steve's like I probably shouldn't have said that.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

That was kind of uh But you know, like how many thousands of hours of time have you been on the air? And you know, at some point you're gonna say something, you go, probably shouldn't have said that.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

Oh, I I look back, we're talking about old blogs. I look back on things that I wrote, um, and I'm like, that was just mean spirited. That was not funny. It might have been funny in 2009 when we weren't all soft. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but uh I look back and I'm like, oh cringe, cringe.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

But you grew. You said it earlier. You said, like, okay, once you know better, you do better, right? And you're like, okay, I'm that different person. You were you were in your 30s. I'm a different person than I am now.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Yeah, you know, and I'm like, I I think that when we first started, people never allow that, they never agree that they never think that you have grown.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

Oh, and I I I experienced that a lot um because everybody wants you to be exactly who you were at that time. Yes, that's like they they don't want you to be able to change and to grow and and and and maybe look at things differently. Like you're under no obligation to be who you used to be.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

You can change every single day and every single day your growth. And and you know what?

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Those people. Yeah, I know. I hate when people do that.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

And I've I've stopped. It might be because of my menopause, or it might be my age, or my my givea damn is busted. I am no longer trying, because you know, when I first came out swinging, it's kind of easy to swing when you've got music row behind you and um nobody knows who you are because you're just the boring little health inspector from from Gatesville, Texas. It's easy to swing there. But then when you come out of the closet a little bit, um, you know, it's tough. I used to get really uh anxious, almost to the point where I had my first experience with panic attacks. Because a lot of these events that I'd have to go to with with Coke, or even like the uh the I call them the fake award shows. I I explain to people, they're like, why are you freaking out? Like everybody loves you. I'm like, no, they don't. And you realize you put everyone you've ever shit talked in one room together.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

You know, they're looking up at you, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

But speaking of shit talking, let's talk a little Kevin F and Fowler. I love Kevin. Let's talk about these.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

I will never talk shit about him.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

No, I so uh I think it was last week that I was I was at lunch here at Dripping Springs and I ran into him and I'm I went right up to his table and was like, Kevin F and Fowler and uh um fill in the effing part. And you apparently coined the term uh redneck messiah.

SPEAKER_03 48:11

I did, I did, I did. Okay. So of all the artists in the very, very beginning, he was the first person to ever reach out to me. The second one was Hayes Carr. The first one, he Hayes did it publicly on Twitter. He's like, Keep swinging the hammer. I don't know who you are, but I love you. And I was like, I took that tweet and I printed it out and I laminated it and it sat on top of my computer for years. But the very first person to ever reach out to me on it was an email or something, and he's like, Hey, um, you made fun of my song today, but everything you said it was something about a beer. I love beer. And I was like, Oh, Kevin Fowler singing about beer, you know? And but then in my blog, I said, you know what? It if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you want some serious, heartfelt song, don't be listening to Kevin Fowler. He sings songs for drunk Texans, and that's what he's good at. So don't be trying to beer baiting ammo. Exactly, exactly. And and I think I said something like, you know what, if you know Kevin, which I didn't, but we would go see him in concert all the time. That's not an act.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

That's doing it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

And so, yeah, and so I had done a blog because he was one of the guys that we would go see all the time, me and me and my little group of friends in in Texas. And that's what I love about a Kevin Fowler show. I say it reminds me of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, because you can go see it over and over and over because he's gonna play the same songs in the same order, he's gonna make the same comments in between. You're gonna throw up your triple crown, you're gonna do all the things, and that is a Kevin Fowler show. And so I had gone and I did a full recap of the show, and of course, I was very complimentary because I love Kevin. And one thing that I love about Kevin, it's the same thing I love about Aaron Watson is rain, snow, sleet, doesn't matter. He's at that merch table. He is kissing babies, he's signing t-shirts, and uh that's why he has such a strong fan base. And that was kind of my joke in the blog. I said that Kevin Fowler is so good at being Kevin Fowler that if he could get the he could get the crowd riled up, that if he went and told us to go, this is terrible when you say it out loud. Um, he could tell us to go pour battery acid on orphans and we we would go do it.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Damn. It's a compliment. Yeah, well, yeah. But whoo.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

Yeah, I got a little pushback from that.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Yeah, I bet you did.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

And so that's how I called him. I was like, yeah, he's the redneck messiah. And so then um I would I would only refer to him on the air or when I'm outshoring or entering a song or even on my blog as the redneck messiah. And all these years later, he's like, Man, that name sure stuck. I go, Yeah, you should be selling t-shirts, but I gotta trademark that. I'm getting a piece of that pop.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

You know, the only time I've ever seen him in concert or seen him perform was at the wild game dinner at the high school cafeteria 20, well, I don't know, 15 years ago. I was eating emu enchiladas listening to Kevin Fowler with the I don't know, three or four hundred people at the wild game dinner?

SPEAKER_03 51:01

Oh, I love Kevin Fellow.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

He showed up and did, he had a great time and he was, you know, it was it was fun and because he's you know, he's been around for uh Jeffrey Springs for the city.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

He's Kevin Effenfeller, I'm telling you. Rita, I want to I want to kind of dial it back just a little bit from the Rita Blue persona, and I want to ask you, does Rita ever overshadow uh overshadow Crystal? Like, do you forget sometimes that you were actually Crystal? Like when you're with Big West, which I love Big West. Oh, who doesn't love Big West? We we went to Mexico together. We got this was you got to see Cruz Wesley. I got to see Cruz Wesley. Cruz Wesley and Big West are two separate people.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

And dressed as Eeyore? Was he dressed as Eeyore? It was uh huh. Yeah, it was um onesie night on the cruise ship, but we had a really hard time. He's like 6'5, 300 pounds. We had a really hard time finding a onesie for that man. So we found an Eeyore onesie. Of course, it hit him right here at the calf. Capri, Capri onesie, yeah. He was on Capri's. We we we we cut it off and then he was capri ore.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

Yeah, so so back to that question. Do you feel like Crystal sometimes you're like, hey, I'm still No.

SPEAKER_03 52:08

I I think at this point we're the same. Like Crystal is the same person as Rita. I really, really think so. I think I I you know, there are times where I guess I have to put it on or whatever, but I have been, you know, if you follow me on my Facebook, I I write about every insecurity that I have. You're very honest about that. I'm very yeah, I'm very open. I'm very honest. Because I I feel like a lot of a lot of women, you know, have the same concerns that I have. And you know, when I'm not talking about music or cyberbullying people, I talk about the things that I love. But menopause, your doggies, your mama. My dogs, my mom.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

This is in your blogs, you do like this?

SPEAKER_03 52:44

No, I don't. This is just her.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

On the radio?

SPEAKER_03 52:46

Yeah, just no, on my Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

Oh, on your Facebook.

SPEAKER_03 52:48

On my Facebook, yeah. My blogs I only do now, and they're very vanilla for the Coke website. Like I haven't been scandalous in a long time. But like on my personal Facebook page, um, if I'm having a bad day, I'm probably gonna tell you. Yeah. You know, if if I see something that that triggers my father's suicide, I'm gonna tell you. Yeah. And uh that comes from the fact that I'm I've never been, quote, a writer, but I've always loved to write. And I have been journaling for 25 years. I have them stacked up in the closet. Um, so it came to the point where I would start, I guess, journalism, journal, journaling, journaling, journalism on my Facebook. That's on the show. Yeah. On my Facebook. But you realize whenever uh we left Austin, it'll be five years on October 31st. My husband got my husband got a promotion and we moved to the Fort Worth area. And I went through a clinical depression. Not I'm sad, I didn't leave the house for three years. That is no exaggeration. I I stopped any at all Facebook, I stopped all social media. Now I was still working for Coke FM. I was uh tracking on the weekends, but like it was just the lowest part of my life. And I look back, because that's I'm I've got about a year and a half one day. One day I just woke up and said, Yeah, I'm done with this. You know, I had done all the things. I had the I had the therapist, then I had the medication that made me fat as a pig. And I I did all the things, and then it was just really I it just it just ran its course. And um, but whenever I came back on Facebook and then people were so nice, oh my god, we were worried about you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's another tough thing. Whenever you're on a morning show in Austin, Texas, USA, your phone blows up constantly. The minute you walk away, you find out who your friends are.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 54:33

Because artist, artist management, crickets. They're not friends, and they can all eat a bowl of dick.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

Yeah, that that's uh that's a hard lesson to learn in life. That uh I had years ago, 30 something years ago, a big life event, and uh this was before it was easy to email and call and all that. And uh, so I had big life change, and it was funny because only like two or three people kept in touch with me, and I felt like I had all these friends from the industry I was in, and they all just disappeared. Yeah, and they wouldn't at some point they wouldn't return my calls, and you know, I was like, okay. I felt like I had all these friends, but they weren't there for me.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

But then you also removed yourself from that because you felt like it was a constant reminder as well.

SPEAKER_00 55:16

That's right, that's fine.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

Well, that's that was me. Like, I I can't get mad necessarily because I did remove myself, and there were times where I didn't return texts and I didn't return calls, but I I guess there was just a fine line between, hey, can you get my artist on? Hey, can you play my new single? Hey, and then all of a sudden you can't do those things. Yeah, it's the artificial friends.

SPEAKER_02 55:36

It's like, is it hard? Do you find it kind of hard to find authentic friendship or authentic people that don't just want to be friends with you to get tickets or or oh yeah, can I oh, can you have me introduced?

SPEAKER_03 55:50

Yeah, oh a hundred percent. And that's my favorite quote of all time with movies, and I love movies. It's an almost famous whenever Lester Bang tells the kid, never make friends with the rock stars because they will get you drunk on making you feel you belong you do not, you are not cool, you're not cool. And then I had to learn that lesson the hard way. I was like, they're not your friends.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Well, it makes you appreciate the real things. A hundred percent the ones that are there with you through thick and thin, you really get a good appreciation for that. Wow. Um, how do you so you got a lot of stuff going on? You spend a ton of time on social media and you're doing the show with Scotty on Coke, and how do you unwind that?

SPEAKER_03 56:33

I I go to the porch with my little weenie dog. And um, you know, talking about the the depression, one of the things that helped me so much. Now we moved up here. I didn't know a soul, yeah, I didn't have any friends in the area, and I was just so unhappy. And then we got my little, well, then then my dogs died. I had a I had a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old Dachshund, and they passed away, then I was just devastated, devastated. And I said, Well, never, I'll never get another dog. And then uh a couple months later, I was like, We're getting a dog. And so I would go out on the on the back porch every day with my little Dottie West, and uh, so I would see this little head jumping up up and down. And I was like, what is going on over there? And this little voice would say, Hi, I'm Zoe. Will you be my friend? My seven-year-old neighbor. Really? Yes, and I hate kids. This kid is cool, right? And so every day I would go outside at the time with with my puppy, and they had also gotten a new puppy. And so one day her mother came outside and she's like, You know what? Thank you for talking to Zoe. She's bothered you. Oh no, she's my only friend. What are you talking about? I I look forward to, I can't wait until the school bus drops her off every day. What are you talking about? And um, she's she's she's around my age, and um then we've become friends.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 57:59

And so I become friends with her family and friends.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

That's great.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

And so that's that kind of also got got me out as well. But um, I just love my dogs. Now I have we have two now. We have Dottie West and Davy Crockett, and they're two little miniature wiener dogs, and these this is and they're so naughty. Oh, they're awful. And this is we've had five Dachshunds in a row. The first one, OG, was Dudley, then we had Dolly, and we had Dewey Cox, and then we've got Dottie West and Davy Crockett. We have no idea why we always pick D names, but now we can't not have D names.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

So you started a trend.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

Yeah, so I just I like to uh I like to doom scroll. I like to I love movies, I love documentaries, I love murder documentaries. Like I'm so into murder. Have you ever heard of crime con?

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Uh uh.

SPEAKER_03 58:49

Okay. There's a convention. A huge convention.

SPEAKER_02 58:52

But wait a minute. I was in crime con by myself. You also have a connection to somebody else that's famous in crime. Keith Morrison? Keith Morrison. Okay, get this. Do you know who Keith Morrison? You know who Keith Morrison is.

SPEAKER_01 59:05

Yes, yes, you do.

SPEAKER_03 59:06

If I if I pull it up, he's on Dateline NBC. He's uh old guy with white hair. Okay, so um for years, years, every Friday nights, I would watch Dateline. And so this was back when Twitter was in its heyday before it became the cesspool of X. And so every Friday night, I would get on and we would use the hashtag Dateline. Hashtag Dateline. And so you would literally live tweet the entire two-hour episode with all the other Dateline fans, and Keith Morrison would get in the comments with you. And so, uh, I'm looking at you Googling.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

When I just said I said Keith Morrison and Rita Blue look at that wedding.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

Well-known super fan of NBC Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison.

SPEAKER_03 59:53

Okay, so I um, and so here's the okay, here's the cool part, right? And so uh they have an entire social media team that also gets on there and and they give you little tidbits about the episode. It was just a fun Friday night, every single Friday night. And of course, they filmed that at 30 Rock in New York City. Well, my husband and I were going on a trip and we were gonna go to New York City. So I'm, and we called it Big Apple Baloo. And that was my hashtag because hashtags used to be a big deal. So here we were going to New York City, and then all of a sudden, in my DMs is the producer of Bait Line, and she's like, We love you so much, Rah Velvet. We want what how long are you in New York for? I go, we're here for the week. And they're like, You want to come and see the studios? That's awesome. Do you want to meet Keith? I go, Are you serious? So we go, we spend the entire day. They treated us like kings and queens. We watched them produce an episode. I got to meet Andrea Canning, who's another one of their uh on-air people. Uh, they showed us how this how the show works. But here's the best part the entire social media staff of Dateline, fabulous gay guys who enjoy the snark. So we walk in, and all of a sudden, they basically come running and they go, Oh my god, is there rahide velvet? Because that was my my Twitter handle and stuff. They gave us an entire tour of 30 Rock. We saw where Sit Saturday Night Live, they gave us all this dirt, I mean, uh, Dateline merch. But you probably don't remember this, but there was a mass shooting. Um, I want to say it was in Arizona, it was somewhere, but anyway, Keith had to go. We didn't get to meet Keith. Oh, no way.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:33

Yes. I was like, dang it. You have a Keith pillow now, though, too, didn't you? Didn't some meeting.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:37

You mentioned that in the article.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:39

Yeah, some sort of my computer just went to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:41

It's like it just plug it back.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:43

It just no, it's it's on, but it just went like nine-night.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Oh, there it goes.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

Yeah, I I went out to the mailbox. I don't know, not the mailbox, but like the front porch, you know, the the the the Amazon. And um I had a magically, a magically a box appeared, right? Do you know who sent that? Hmm, Bob Cole. Are you kidding?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:04

That sounds like Bob.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:05

So so every night I sleep to uh I like to sleep to murder. So I always listen to the old uh if you go to the Peacock app, there's a 24-7 Dateline channel. And so I sleep to murder with my little head on Keith Morrison's face.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:18

How do you fall asleep to that?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:21

I love it. Well, that's Steve, Steve would say, What are you listening to? And I'd go, Murder. Murder for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:27

So my husband's the same way because I sleep with I I don't have headphones, but he does. But sometimes he says, I woke up and I was cared about some woman burying a body in the back door. I was like, Yeah, be careful and watch out.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

Or some woman that killed her husband. Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't go back to sleep.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

So I I want to mention Big Wes and how you guys met. Um, you met through a connection through the Ace and the Whole Band, which is George Strait. When you were a student, you went to um at the time it was called Southwest Texas and in San Marcos, and you guys both worked at this little bar and you tried to sneak in and you started working there. But Wes has to be, he is such a unique, gentle giant kind of figure.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:11

He is well, you know what he wanted to do originally, huh? It would have been his calling. He wanted to be a hostage negotiator. Really? He was studying criminal justice because that's what he wanted to do. Oh, wow. Yeah. Instead, he started selling Pepsi and then he started selling drugs. But he he is they we call him, I don't, they call him, people call him the Rita Whisperer. And um, yeah, and Saint Wesley, but no Saint Wesley, and you say he has Stockholm syndrome. Yes, I say that. He's been stuck with me 28 years. Well, we shacked up for two and a half, so like 30 years.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:45

Yeah, y'all been together a really long time. And so what do you think makes that marriage continue to work, continue to tick?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

Well, you know what? His love language is taking care of people, and I need to be taken care of.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:58

You you hit the jackpot. Yeah, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:00

You know what? I have a lot of my friends, bless their hearts, their pickers are off, right? They're like, you don't understand, you're just so lucky. I go, it ain't my fault. You haven't picker.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

You and I have both talked about this because we are in good marriages. And they're like, You're so spoiled. I'm like, I'm sorry my husband likes me and yours never did.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

Yeah, it's my fault.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:20

Sorry, sorry, yours suck, ours doesn't. I can't help you pick a bad one.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:26

In my research, I uh came up with a uh couple of terms that I wanted to ask you about. Here we go. One was man fan, and the other one was diesel sniffer. What are those?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:36

You did do your research. Those are one of some of my original blogs. Um, beware of the man fan. Now you know what a man fan is. That's whenever you go to a concert and it's always the same dude. He's always got the hat on backwards, and he's always uh in the front row and he's fist pumping. And it's like, you don't you don't belong here, bro. This is panty row. Uh-huh. Beat it. And he's always the guy that's like, he goes up to the merch table and he's like, hey, Kevin Fata, I bought I bought you this whiskey. And Kevin's like, I got whiskey on the bus. Let me lose it. You know, now he would never say that, but like, you know what I'm saying? He's that guy. And you know what? I I you gotta love them and appreciate them. They're fans, but sometimes a man fan can be a little bit over the top.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

A little too much. What about diesel sniffer?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:20

Okay, diesel sniffer is another word for groupie, meaning they're always sitting on the curb waiting by the bus, sniffing diesel. Because they're trying to get on the bus. And here's what people don't understand. I've been on a bus a time or two. I've never had to sniff the diesel. I mean, no, for for work.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

I think people think they're gonna walk on the bus. There's gonna be a big giant thing of cocaine and a disco ball and a big thing of lube.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:48

This is a blue thing of dark people.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

This is where they live. There's a ham and cheese tray, and you know, there's some beer, but it's not like a big giant party. People live there, they're working. True.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

It's true.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:01

And they're inviting you into their home. Yes. And would you walk, okay? Let's say you're a huge fan of, I don't know, Motley Crue. Would you walk up to Tommy Lee's and knock on the door and try to get in his house? No. Yeah. I'm sorry that you're cute. And you know what? A lot of times, if you're cute, you'll get invited on the bus. But they're not inviting the girls who are indeed stiff in the diesel.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:22

Oh, God, geez. That's so funny. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:26

Well, I know that you mentioned um Eric Reigns a couple of times. And I wanted to ask you who of all of the years that you've worked with, who has been besides Eric? Oh, besides Eric. Who has been your favorite co-host that you have?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:40

Oh, Buddy Logan. Oh, Buddy Logan's amazing. And you know what? Um, he's now selling insurance and making three times as much money. But uh, talk about a passion and a love for radio. And he got a little burned out.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:53

Was he your your mentor per se?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

Oh no, no, no. If I had to have a mentor, um there's a woman, her name is Heather Frogleer. That is not her name. She works for a froggy station, and 30 years ago they all had stupid frog names. Heather Lockleer, Heather Frogleer.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:10

Oh, God, jeez.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:11

Now I would I would listen, and she is then in California. She's actually in the Country Music Hall of Fame as a DJ. And she's worked for the same station for like 30 years. That's unheard of.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:24

That's absolutely the only person I know who's done that is Bob Pickett, who's another mentor. But uh, I love Heather Froglier. Yeah, let's look her up. Frogleer.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

Heather Froglier.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

Now, even you know what? Even just this week, I text here, let me let me read you the text I just sent her just this week. Hold on.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:42

KFRG Frog.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:44

There she is with Kenny Rogers. She's been with every she's interviewed everyone. And she actually um does a couple syndicated shows uh on 90s country. She's probably the most respected woman. And I don't know how we became friends, but we met at CRS and um she let me stay in her room one night. Like it's a whole thing. Oh, wow. Okay, so this is why I texted her. I said, Heather, after your 437 years in radio, have you ever gotten to the point in your career where you're just out of words? Like, I don't have a single opinion anymore. I just don't want to talk anymore about anything. I don't know if I'm just burnt out or I'm having some type of existential crisis, but literally, I'm so sick of hearing my own voice. I was clearly having a day. Yeah. This was a menopausal rage day. And she wrote back, she goes, every day, girlfriend, every day. So if I, if I, if I and also, um, are y'all familiar with Jennifer Allen? Jennifer Allen worked at Waco 100 for a million billion years, and now she lives in Kentucky. And I talked to Jennifer three times a week, and uh, she's running a several radio stations up in Kentucky. That woman knows more about radio than any man, woman, child that I've ever met. Jennifer's amazing. So if I had to pick some, those are some.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:56

I think that what you do or what you have been able to accomplish in your career cannot be necessarily taught. And I think one day maybe you'll go back to Southwest or Texas State or whatever the heck it's called nowadays and be, you know, be a guest professor.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:12

Guest professor.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:13

Because I think I, you know, you mentioned your mentors, and I have told you this, and I even told Steve that she will not take a compliment. And I told her just shut up and say thank you. But you, you are somebody that I have aspired, you know, on your on-air talent and your wit is absolutely just hands down extraordinary. And that led me to believe that thinking you have turned ordinary conversations into extraordinary conversations. So, two kudos to you, and you're you've done an amazing job and you have an amazing career.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:44

Thank you. I make I make a thousand dollars a month.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

Well, and now now you're uh you're on the morning show with Scotty on Coke, which is an online radio station.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:56

And then I double back into afternoons from three to seven, the Rita Blue Experience, which by the way was a thing before the Joe Rogan experience. It was it was the Rita Blue Experience. We stole it from you. Oh, I think we stole it. And you were also out of a station out of uh there's a brand new station in Marble Falls. It used to be a gospel station, and about a year ago, they flipped it to Texas Country, and I do middays. It's Hill Country 1047, your Texas Your Alternative. And I'm on from uh 10 to 3. And probably I'm gonna brag on myself, which you know I don't like to do. But I got a I got a uh a Facebook message the other day from a guy named Bud Rock. Do you know who Bud Rock is? For the past for the past for the past 137 years, Bud Rock has done all of the lighting for Willie Nelson. Oh, and he was just a huge fan of the Bob Cole show. And of course he follows follows me on on Instagram, which I I I very rarely get on Instagram. And so uh Bud Rock sent me a message. He's like, just so you know, we listen to you every single day on the bus. Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

Yeah, that's him and Willie and the whoever's and wait and Whalen Payne, who's who's in who's in the band too.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:04

And I've been wailing for years.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:06

So he's fangirling you while you are fangirling him as well. Well, I am honored that I get to share some radio waves with you. We have a good time, it's fun, and we just pick on Scotty the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:17

So do you have a nickname for her? I have a nice one.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:19

Oh, yeah, she calls me Bougie Bitch. Oh well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:22

I was gonna say Michelle Mrs. Mayhem Lewis.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:25

Mama Lou. Mama Lou. I did make a joke that I thought should have been laughed out harder the other day when I said that I was pretty sure that Michelle's in the Illuminati, and I can't wait to go see her mini mansion today because I want to see what's going on in the mini mansion. The mini mansion. She has a mini mansion.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:41

No, they were making fun of me. They were like, oh, and here she goes into the gated community. Well, I did a story. I did a story on poor people. It was about tattoos. It was about tattoos. It was a story about these plebes and these peasants. And it turned into Michelle doesn't like poor people.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:03

Jeez. Did you see that story that's going around about the two stripes uh on the forearm?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:10

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:11

Uh the tattoos on the forearm. I'm actually not going to tell you because you'll look it up later. But uh, they're saying tattoo artists don't want to do those anymore. That was the news story story I read because people think it's a cool tattoo, but the origination of it is not something. But it's something because I know the two thunderbolts is something you would never expect. And I'm not gonna say it on air because it's not I'll say it. It's uh yeah. Well, there you go. But we probably don't want to say it on a few. Because it can be a family show. Oh, oh, oh. The two stripes like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:46

I don't get it. Right here.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:47

I'll tell you off the air, Crystal.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:50

Oh, okay. A little uh dance.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:53

No, it's not that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:54

Are you the are you the slave? You know, are you the main one?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:57

This was on yeah, this was on a uh this was on a regular just news site.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:01

It was a story about well, Rita and I do not have tattoos. I have a couple. You do. What is yours?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

You I have uh I have a lion.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:16

Tramp stamp.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:17

Yeah, I have a tramp stamp right here. I have a uh yeah, it's a phoenix, it's a flaming phoenix right here.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:23

He just came got back from Brookback Mountain, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:26

I have a friend of mine, bless her heart. Whenever uh she was younger, she went and got her a tattoo, and it's the state of Texas with a yellow rose. It's real pretty, right? And she had a baby, and now it looks like Minnesota. She's like, How do I get this off of me? It looks like Minnesota.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:42

I get it covered up.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:44

Oh my god. I have my tattoo picked out, but I'll never get it. Go ahead. I know y'all can't hear this on the podcast, but Google Picasso Dachshund.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:53

Okay, Picasso D-A. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:56

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:57

Okay, we'll oh, it's that is so cute. It is cute. Uh, I I I don't know where I would put it, and I can't do it while my mom's still with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:07

You know, I I I never thought I'd get a tattoo, and then I got to a certain age and I was like, you know, never had one. What's that experience like? And so I went and got one and then I got another. But I'm it's I'm over it now.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

You too can be a part of the pores.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:19

Yes, you know what I did to the pores in the trash.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:22

You know what I did for my 30th birthday? I got my belly button fixed. Oh, it was awful. I bet it was. It was awful. I screamed the whole time where they thought I was faking it. No, I was serious. It was the worst pain I've ever experienced, which is so dumb. I've never had a flat belly. You had to pick up my belly to see the belly button ringing, like it was ridiculous. And uh, and then about two months later, I had my gallbladder emergency surgery, and they took it out, and that's like a never went back in. Never went back in. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:52

Yeah. Well, Crystal, I aspire to be the personality that you are. I mean, yeah, this you bring so much energy and enthusiasm and creativity to what you do.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:03

And I'm so nice. I'll come in here every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:05

I feel can I get my face on all your movies? We will, please.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:09

We'll get everything on. See, she was um, if you're on the YouTube, you can see this uh um I or what is this uh metal, a metal art piece that's right behind us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:20

I did I had that order. I got that. Michelle was in New York, and when she came back, I said, Yeah, I got surprising.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:28

My boots look like they have lasers coming out of the boobs. I have laser boobs. Yes, you too can have a laser boob sign. Go to the YouTube and you can see it. Rita, thank you so much. We're gonna go today. Is um National Tequila Day, and Rita and I are gonna go to Matt's L Rancho and Rita's.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:49

You and a thousand other people.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:50

And Rita and I are gonna have a sleepover.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

Yeah, I bet you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:53

Yeah, we are in the mini mansion with the Illuminati and the pork.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:56

No more before that.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:58

Yeah, no more before.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:59

Well, thank you so much, Rita. Thank you all for having us.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:02

This was fun. Oh, did we just go?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:05

Rita Baloo.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:06

Rita Balloo.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:08

She's awesome. She's such a smart, funny lady.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

She uh she doesn't give herself a lot of credit.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:15

It's crazy. She is so talented and so smart.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:18

Well, she has so many aliases. She was known as Crystal with a camera. Rita Ballou, she started out Crystal Crystal with a camera. Now she's Rita Ballou, which is her stage name, and then uh Crystal Christie with a camera. And then Crystal Campbell is her actual her government name, is what she says.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:38

She's uh, you know, we read some of her stuff before she came on, and she's very, very talented. She's a very good writer, and I was it was a lot of fun to have her on. She's a hoot.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:48

Do you need a nap?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:49

I do need a nap.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:50

I don't know how you got a word in Edgewine.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, it was a good one to come back for my backpacking trip to Oregon. Holly and I spent five days out in uh the Three Sisters Wilderness, which is just west of Bend, uh, which I had discovered is one of the prettiest parts of the country. It's it's absolutely gorgeous out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:12

We go sands people.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:14

Sands people.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:15

Minus the people.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:16

Minus people. I thought you meant like sand people. No, no, no. Star Wars.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:20

Yeah, that's that's what I meant. The sand people.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

So the the trip we had planned, I had done a little research looking for the the most uh memorable backpacking trips in the country, and I found a list of the top 10. Uh Big Ben was one, which we've already done, Grand Canyon was one, which we've already done, and the Three Sisters Wilderness, which is a it's a Three Sisters Loop, it's called. It's uh they said it was 46 miles and ended up being almost 60 for us. Of course, we took a couple little detours, but uh it was all the pooping you did. It was all the pooping, it was all the running out into the woods and running back. Yes, that's what it was. Um but it goes around three volcanoes the South Sister, the Middle Sister, and the North Sister.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:04

Oh, that's why it's called the Three Sisters.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:07

Okay, and those mountains are all still not covered in snow, but a couple of them actually have glaciers on them, so they those they never melt. There is ice up there all year long. I think one of them's about 9,000 feet. But you could see the mountains pretty much from every viewpoint we you know on that whole loop. And um, there was one time we were covering this lava field. There's about an seven or eight mile lava field, which is fascinating because you were reminded how insignificant we are on this planet. There are mountains that erupted billions and billions of yards of dirt and and lava, and that all came down these mountains. And you hike over those, which is crazy. There's nothing growing, it's like being on the moon. But there was one place in that lava field we could see all three sisters, we could see Broken Top Mountain, we could see Three Finger Jack, we could see Jefferson Mountain, and we could see Mount Hood all from one place.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:06

You went to Brokeback Mountain?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:08

No. Broke back. It's called Broken Top.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:14

The uh I didn't know it was that kind of trail.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:16

It's broken top. Yeah, we the first the first night we camped at this uh I'm actually not gonna say the name because it's a little secret. Yeah, it's it's a it's a small lake that's not shown to be on the trail. Uh it's probably maybe two-acre lake, cold as hell because it's all snow around.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:37

Let's be honest. Nobody's gonna go hike over there as crazy as you guys are.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:42

Yeah, they are. Yeah, there will be people that'll do it. Okay, yeah. Especially after I tell them how cool it looks. Especially when you tell them that you've pooped all around the I have pooped all across that three sisters wilderness. Uh, but we camped at this little, it's probably two-acre lake. It's all snow melt, super cold. Um, but there was this probably 20-acre meadow that and the mountain was broken broke broke back, broken top mountain was in the background. And it was just, it was beautiful. It was like the sound of music. It was like you could not describe it were the hills alive? The hills were alive with the sound of music.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:17

You forgot to say that before you went on this trip, the day before, or two days before, you severely severely, severely twisted your ankle falling off of a curb.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:28

Yeah, I did. Uh to the point where I actually thought it was broken. The day before we got on the plane, I went to uh Lewis Urgent Care and they looked at it and said, no, it's just it's a terrible spring, but it's not broken.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:42

And you got it, you got some steroids.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

I got steroid injection, and I wore a brace the whole time. Uh, but it's you know, it's almost 60 miles, 10,000 feet of climbing. Um, and I just I just worked my way through it. And it was worth it. It it was the last day was the most painful. Every step I took, I would go in my head, I would go, ouch, ouch.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:04

Well, you spent six months planning this trip. Yeah, I know. And you didn't want to miss out on it. It reminds me of when I went to Disney World nine months pregnant.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:14

I'm doing it, damn it. I'm going, I don't care. Nothing's gonna stop me from hearing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:19

I I'm so excited when you and and Holly get to go because when you come back, you see there's such a peace about you.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:27

It's I tell you what, disconnecting.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:29

It really is on day one, and then day two, yeah, you run back into the all the things I've got to do, and and then day three is kind of like where we are right now. It's like, okay, reality is kind of set in. I'm I'm I'm I'm a couple of days away from off from my vacation. Do I even remember how to do any of this stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:52

Somebody asked me my phone number yesterday and had to think about it for uh yeah, oh yeah, and it came to me. But you know, the the second day we I brought a power bank and it didn't work, it didn't charge my phone. So the second day my phone completely died, which for like a second I kind of panicked. And then after that, I went, what the hell am I gonna do? I'm out here in the middle of the wilderness. Even if I even if I could get a signal, what am I gonna do? We had paper maps we could navigate just fine. We were on the Pacific Crest Trail, so uh it's it's very well marked. And so, you know, we weren't gonna have any problem getting lost or anything. I knew you guys were taking care of everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:27

I had one emergency, that was it. It was a podcast emergency. It was a podcast emergency. We had some scheduling, something accidentally got plugged in to it was the mayor's, but we figured it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:38

It's all if you go to the website now, you'll see the correct YouTube video. But um there was one thing, I had a big epiphany. So we were on the Pacific Crest Trail, and you know, Holly and I had been talking about doing the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail when we retire. Um and so we met uh and talked to quite a few of the through hikers, which are people that are doing the Pacific Crest Trail from and they're mostly south to north.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:04

And and an average just just ball age group.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:08

Uh most of them were younger. I did run into one guy that was 67. Okay. Um but they they weren't through hikers, they were called section hikers. So they'll do like a 200-mile section and then fly home for a couple months and then come back and do another section. But we met some people and I realized they were missing so much of what they were surrounded by because they're focused on the mileage. And I don't want to do that. Like there's this place uh called the Wicke Up Plain, which is uh it's it's called Moraine, which is a glacier or whatever, a million years ago, went down through there and scrubbed all the dirt away, and there's nothing growing there. There's no trees, there's no bushes, there's these little tiny plants like a half inch tall. Nothing else grows there. And I asked this one lady, I go, Did you go through the Wicki Up Plain, which is like legendary? And she goes, I I don't know. I said, Well, it's this large plane, you know, and there's nothing growing there. And she goes, I think I did. And I was thinking, you're missing it. You are so she she was so focused on the mileage. Like, I gotta get 25 miles today to make sure that I get to to uh Canada in time. And I thought, I'm not sure I want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:15

Talk about the force of the trees, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally missing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:19

You are missing what I could say that you know, before the benchmark for me has been the Grand Canyon, rim to rim to rim, which Holly and I have done twice. That's the most legendary trail I've ever done, and and the best in my mind. This trail rivals that, yeah, it is gorgeous everywhere you look. It there's probably 12 different types of terrain you go across. You go through burned fields, you go through lava fields, you go through rainforests, you go through that moraine plain. There's all the meadows everywhere with creeks going through them. Uh, I would say that was one of the prettiest trails we've ever been on. I feel sad that those people, one guy I ran that the 67-year-old guy, I go, How you doing? He goes, Tired today. I go, Oh, yeah, what's up? He goes, We did 32 miles yesterday. So they're just clocking the miles, which I get. I mean, you want, you know, if it's your goal to get there, but I got I don't want to miss it. I want to get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:11

Your goals it shouldn't be miles. Your goal should be experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:15

I agree. I agree. Experience the the beauty that you surround yourself with.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:19

That that should be your life motto. It shouldn't be the miles, it should be the experiences. I'm all about making memories, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:26

But anyway, it was a great trip. It's good to be back. What's the next one? Uh, we're gonna do Big Bend again in December. Uh, I just booked that actually. So um, and then next year we're gonna do the West Highland way in Scotland again.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:38

So how exciting! Oh, so just let me know because I look forward to when you're out of the office also.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:44

So I'll I'll I have to have something on the calendar in the future that's you know, when you get those crappy weeks, you're like, it's okay, yeah, a couple months. I'm gonna go get away for a while, and that keeps you going.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:55

So my life doesn't currently right now belong to me. Um, I am I'm a caretaker right now, so I'm I haven't I don't have it's not my story yet. And uh um, but I will tell the story, but I am really looking forward to having a trip planned to where I'm you have one coming up, don't you? Um no, well, we were supposed to do the bourbon trail, and I had to I had to postpone that one. So that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:24

Get a get a trip on the calendar, and I know things will even out here pretty soon.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:28

I'm gonna do little little micro little micro things, but you know what I have been doing? I have been reading a lot of books. Okay, I know wait I say the word reading. I have been listening to a lot of books. I've read a lot of books. And thanks to Dripping Springs Library, their their audio book, I've really enjoyed that. I thank you so much for you turning me on to that. And then I also now have looped into Houston Library, and so now I get almost everything. So I it's great. You know, I was on hold for one book for six months.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:54

I believe it isn't that crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:56

But I read it and I alright, sorry. I listened to it twice. I love it. I love this book.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:01

I'd love to know what our listeners think. If you listen to an audio book, is that reading the book, or is that is it not the same? Do you feel like it's not the same?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:09

Okay, I am if you know this or not, but I'm a little ADHD, but I'm also control freak. Really? Oh my gosh. I know, breaking news, but I'm able to listen and I don't know, drive and do other things at the same time. Yeah. So I actually I finished that book and I painted doors at my house. So it was great. But excuse me, the Dripping Springs Community Library is going to be having a book affair. It's celebrating 40 years, and it is a uh an event that they're having August 15th. They're gonna, they say, join us for an unforgettable evening at our first annual book affair event benefiting the Dripping Springs Community Library. Tickets, sponsorships, and underwriting opportunities are still available, and you can go to the Dripping Springs City Library.org. Um, I think this is a great event that they're trying to do, and they have um designated storytellers. I know the Hippolitos are. Storytellers. I know that Amanda and Hector Wood Wildbirds, they are the store some storytellers also. You and I got invited to this event. So I hope that our schedules align and maybe we can go to that. It's going to be at Pecan's Pecan Springs Ranch at 7 p.m. So if you guys um have any questions, you can email us or just go to their website. But that led me to, I've been seeing a lot of TikToks about the Austin Library. And Austin, the Austin Library is really advertised as this must-see tourist attraction, and architecturally it deserves like all the praise that you have. You have six beautiful floors, a rooftop garden, lake views, art, a cafe, reading porches.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:45

Even the area around the around there, just outside, is really nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:50

Well, it doesn't look like the libraries that we kind of grew up with. It looks more like a luxury kind of hotel. Um, it it's it's beautiful. But visitors there may encounter something that is missing from the tourism brochure. A substantial homeless population is using the building throughout the day. And to be clear, homeless people have the same right to use the public library as everybody else, right? The problem is not simply that these what they like to call them, the unhoused people are present. The question is whether the city has allowed a tourist attraction and something that is tax funded, a neighborhood library and family space to quietly become a substitute shelter and a social services center. And what has happened is at what point does a public library become an unofficial shelter? And now you have librarians that are being forced to be social workers, mental health professionals, and security officers. And would you take your young child, I don't know, into the restroom by themselves?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:53

I don't want to give off too far as to h hijack your story, but you know, the guy that was killed at the YMCA, that's like a block and a half from the downtown library.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:02

Well, they were talking about safety concerns. The Austin Public Library now employs staff specifically to help unhoused patrons to find housing, health care, and other services. The library also has detailed rules prohibiting sleeping, bathing, or washing clothes in the restrooms, intoxication, illegal drugs, threatening behavior, and excessive hygiene problems. You do not create that many specific rules because nothing is happening. But public safety concerns, these are not imaginary. In October 2025, someone was shot inside the Central Library. Oh, I didn't hear about that. Then in March 2026, a man sitting at a computer which was allegedly attacked without provocation, knocked unconscious, and repeatedly stomped in the head. Police chief Lisa Davis happened to be in the building. Here's the funny story. I read about this, and she happened to uh detain the alleged attack attacker. Police chief Davis was in the building because she was giving a safety scene. You talk about ironic. Okay, so here's the honest conversation. Libraries should remain open and welcoming to everybody. I understand that, including the homeless, because you know they have internet access, people are looking for jobs and whatever. But compassion does not mean preventing families, tourists, everyday library patrons from having no right to feel comfortable and safe. And a library can offer services to vulnerable people without feeling without being expected to function as the Austin's unofficial homeless shelter, and that's what it has become.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:37

They go in there in the summer because of the air conditioning, and they go in there in the winter because of the heat, and there's water, and there's sinks, and they can get cleaned up. And I, you know, I feel bad for anybody that has to live like that, but the fact is the city of Austin is perpetuating this crisis.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:54

Absolutely. You know, the city markets um this beautiful building, but it also needs to take responsibility for what is happening inside of it. And I told you the other day um on my LinkedIn, uh, Mayor Kirk Watson, uh, we linked on LinkedIn. I have reached out to him and to his people.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:11

I would love to get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:12

I would love to get him on on the show and just kind of see, you know, we are the redheaded stepchild of Austin. We are we're very um um connected to Austin. What happens in Austin eventually overflows to the suburbs.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:27

It's true.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:27

And so um I would really like we've we've had the mayor of Dripping Springs on several times. I would really love to be able to hear what he has to say and um how we're gonna rectify the situation.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:38

We need to hear their side of the story because all we're hearing is how the city and the city council and the city managers are falling down. I I have a story here. Austin City Audit finds nonprofit contract performance shortfalls. And the uh, you know, this there have been calls for a complete audit of city finances, which the city council is pushing back on really hard. For I don't know why. Maybe if the mayor comes on, he could tell us why. But they audited 25 contracts worth $30 million, and these contracts were for nonprofits that mostly were to serve homeless people in in uh in the city of Austin. And they found that 19 of the 25 failed to meet the performance requirements for those contracts. The money was still given to those nonprofits, but they did not meet the objectives that were in place. I think that's there's uh somebody honking their horn outside, I don't think there's no scale. But they didn't meet the performance objectives for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:38

And I there's a girl on TikTok that I follow, and that she is following this story, and all the exposure that has been been given. I guess they're basically kind of Nick Shirleying her the uh nonprofits.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:50

Yeah. Well, so they did 25 contracts worth 30 million. There's a hundred million dollars worth of these contracts going out to these nonprofits. And if you look, if you dig into these nonprofits, we talked about it a little bit on the show. These executives that run these nonprofits are paid exorbitant amounts of money and the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I guarantee you, if you dig a little further, you will find that those executives with those half million dollar salaries are donating to the city council.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:21

Oh, I'm sure they are.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:22

Yes, it's a giant slush fund of a hundred million dollars used for political gain.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:28

It's a broke back mountain situation in Austin.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:32

But the the thing about it is I don't I would not own property in the city of Austin right now. And if you do own property there, you're being taxed at an exorbitant amount. I've used that word twice, a very high amount. And that money is not being used to any benefit. Just like you say for the library. That library cost the taxpayers probably hundreds of millions of dollars, and now the people, the residents, can't go there safely and use that. So there's a big problem going on with Austin, and I think you know, the fact that you're talking about these TikTokers, it's start it's starting to come to light. I hope that the city council realizes how much how the spotlight is on them, how much people are looking to them. And I think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:24

I agree. And I and and kudos to um the younger generation for waking up and starting to realize, go, wait a minute, you know, the I may not own my house. I may have to pay, you know, $2,000 because you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:39

You pay the rent to the landlord who pays the property taxes.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:42

And so they're they're paying attention. And uh, you know, I know I know Kirk Watson um inherited, you know, he used to be the mayor prior, and uh um he stepped out for a little while and he inherited a real problem. The last mayor of Austin really mucked it up. And uh so so uh, you know, I I I actually really like Kirk Watson. I I I admire him. I think I think what he's done is um it it's the city council is trying to wrangle the city councils, what they're what they've been trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:15

I mean, I'd like to get him in here and and hear what he has to say. You know, we always want to have both sides of the story. It's hard to get that. But right now, I mean, for the most part, the the local media has been very supportive of the city council. Now you're starting to see some stories though. There are this is from statesman.com, this Austin City Audified nonprofit contract performance shortfalls. People are starting to notice, and it's about time.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:38

Well, good. Maybe I'll reach out to that TikToker. Maybe I could get her.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:41

Oh, that would be nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:42

That would be fun. That would be fun. So if you are driving into Austin, um, did you know that right now this is considered we're right smack deb in the middle of the hundred deadliest days of summer? And it's not for what you think, it's not temperature-wise. It is crashes, fatalities, and crashes. So across five states, southern states, um, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee, they're calling it operational slowdown from July 18th through August 2nd. Traffic enforcement, it's a it's a traffic enforcement campaign where law enforcement is increasing patrols and ticketing. So they're gonna target highways and major roads, and they're gonna target speeders and aggressive driving. Um, and so think about uh Mopac, uh 183, 290, whatever. And here's the ticker. They're not gonna give you a warning, they're not gonna give you any warning. They are writing you a ticket. So, I mean, I agree. 290 is one of the deadly is probably considered the deadliest highway.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:50

The deadliest stretch of highway. This the from Austin to 281, I think has been named the deadliest highway in Texas.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:57

Well, as we are recording this, cue the sirens that we could hear, because where we are, we're right off of 290, so we can constantly hear accidents.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:06

Yeah, we're we're downtown dripping, and uh the between Rancho 12 and the water tower is just there's accidents there almost every day. Almost every day.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:16

So Todd tells me that I drive too slow. And he said he says, you always drive slow. But when I'm in the car, I think I've just gotten in the in the habit of like if if my granddaughter's in the car or somebody else is in the car, or if I'm listening to a book.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:33

Are you in the right lane or the left lane?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:34

I I don't like getting in the left lane. I like I always try to get in the right lane.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:37

If you're gonna drive slow and you get in the right lane, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:40

But I do, I will speed every now and then, right? But it just uh the larger the car, the slower I go. Now, when I had my loner car from Lexis, Todd said I loved it because you were zipping in and out, and and I just felt like I had a little bit more control. But it I wanted to ask you, so I've had, I think, if I in my recollection, I think I've only had two tickets. And one was rolling through a stop sign in San Antonio, but it was pouring down rain. I actually, um, funny story, not really funny, funny haha story, but I went to grab my insurance card and it fell on the floor. And when I got up, I had a gun pointed at my face. This was in San Antonio.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:20

And but it was pouring down rain. I couldn't I couldn't stop. I literally just rolled through the stop sign. And then the other one was I got a ticket at Mopak right at the 183 exit back in the day for speeding. Um, I have been pulled over a couple of times, but they gave me warnings um because, well, one I begged, please don't give me a ticket, please don't give me a ticket.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:42

And uh the other young mom, I'm just starting to get home to my kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:46

Yes, and the other one I used uh Kindle as bait. She was young and we were going to the movie. So I'm not above begging. But how many tickets do you think that you've had? Like your lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:54

I God, I've not had one in a while. The last one I got was on 290 when they dropped the speed limit from 60 to 55. They got me going 62. Gosh, that was probably 10 years ago. Um, probably in my whole life, I've gotten four. Uh, but uh the first one I got when I was a kid, when I was 18 years old, I didn't pay any attention to it, didn't pay it, and they suspended my license. Yeah, that was expensive. Yeah, that was in Florida.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:20

I I just forgot when I was like 17, 7, 16 or 17 years old, I got pulled over in Corpus Christi. My girlfriends and I were coming over, coming back from the beach, and I was in a bikini, no shoes, and my mother always told me you had to drive with shoes on or you'd get a ticket. I was terrified that I was gonna go to jail because I had no shoes on. You're gonna throw me in jail.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:43

No shoes in the car.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:45

But they let me go.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:45

But you can wear a bikini, no problem. I was like, beep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I uh I think I'd probably have left out. I actually, that's new stretch of road behind the soccer fields that comes out on Ranch Road 12 and connects to 290. I can't remember what the name of that street is. That's a 25 mile-an-hour speed. Oh, is it? Do you feel like you should go 50 on that? Because there's nothing there right now. And they've been patrolling that, so beware. I got a warning. The gentleman was very nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:15

You did get it. I was going 45.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:18

I was at 25. And he and he let me off. I said, I said, I am so sorry. I just didn't, I didn't have any idea. I felt like I was going to safe speed. He said, Well, you need to slow it down. So public service announcement there, that's 25 miles an hour, and they're enforcing.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:32

Did you tell him you had to poop? I had to poop. I'm trying to go do the wholesale place to go poop.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:37

Hey, uh, real quick, uh, and then we'll wrap this up. Did you hear that the pause shelter of central Texas is closing their Kyle location and now they're shifting their full focus to the city, the dripping springs location?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:50

So I heard that they were gonna close it and then they stopped closing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:54

And then in October last year, they they were running out of money. And so this is the Kyle location. They closed the Kyle location and they weren't sure what was gonna happen. They did a giant fundraising push and they raised almost a half a billion dollars. No, sorry, $500,000, half a half a million. And uh and so they reopened it, but then on July 17th, they said we're just we're not collecting enough money, we're not getting enough donations. So they've closed down permanently the Kyle location.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:23

Well, yeah, I guess I I guess that would kind of make sense and just consolidate everything, consolidate expenses. Is it a bad thing or are they cutting?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:31

I mean, they only have the the dripping springs location is bigger than the Kyle location, and they have a surgery center and some other stuff, but they're gonna run out of space.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:39

Well, maybe expand it a little bit, use some of that, sell the building that they had in Kyle and expand it.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:44

You and I I think they were renting it. I don't think they owned it.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:46

You and I were were out there. Is that the that's the place that we went out to, right? We took we had all those puppies and and or you don't think I went out.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:54

Oh, I don't think it's a good idea. Because we have supported them financially and will continue. I think we're doing an event with them uh in the fall. But yeah, um, you know, it's it's a no-kill shelter, which it's one of the few ones around. And so um they uh you know the dripping springs location I think is pretty well funded, but it's gonna be the only one. So, you know, uh they do a great service for uh mostly abandoned animals, people that can't care for these animals anymore. And so hopefully people that are listening can reach out and support them, keep that location, keep the dripping springs location.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:31

Maybe you can go get yourself a little kitty cat too, Steve, because you need a little kitty cat. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:35

Hey, I'll get one and drop it off on your front doorstep for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:37

Oh, that that sounds great. Hey, I totally forgot to tell you this, but while you were gone, um the event that that I am doing um with my corner of crazy, uh Boots, Barrels, and Heroes. Yeah, the tickets have officially gone on sale. Dun dun done. And um, it's at Carter Creek Winery in Johnson City on October 3rd. I'm super excited about it. Um, we are benefiting Fireside Chat.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:04

Yeah. Um support Network. And the group that he started out there at 12 bucks. Yeah, that's a great charity. Very excited.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:12

Um, we every concert that we put on, we want to have a charity component to it, to first responders and veterans. Um, so we I'm proud to announce that the Josh Abbott band is our headliner. We also have Kinfo. And then we are also going to have, which I love these boys, the Logan Pap band, our dripping springs. So if you guys have any information or if you guys want to buy tickets, you go to evilhawkertainment.com or you can go to cokeradio.com, or you can email us and we'll give you information.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:43

That's very exciting. I'm glad that you're doing that. It's uh it's gonna be a cool event. I can't wait to go check it out. I'm excited. And I won't have to work, I could just sit there and listen in the in the crowd.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:51

That's right. I know you can just sit there and be.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:53

And you're gonna be auctioning off uh some custom guitars again.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:57

We have three. Um, we'll actually have five guitars, three of them will be the event Boots, barrows, and hero guitars. All of the artists will sign them. We'll have two dedicated uh uh Josh Abbott, I almost said Randy Rogers, uh Josh Abbott guitars. We're also gonna have, I think we're gonna have uh one of the event venues is going to be auctioning off a wedding for that weekend.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:20

So cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:20

Um, we may there is a particular uh whiskey maker in the Texas Hill country we're still in talks with that, may be doing a uh what is it called, commemorative bottle that we're gonna auction that off as well. But there's tables and there's general admissions.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:39

And it's October and it'll be cooling off. And it'll be a nice day to be outside all day and listen to some great live music. So where do they get tickets again?

SPEAKER_02 1:45:47

Um evilhawkentertainment.com and uh or you can email us and we can uh we can direct you to there. Maybe we should stick it something up on our website too for a ticket to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:56

I can uh I can put a link on our uh at the bottom of our homepage for tickets to that. So that's very cool. I'm glad that you're involved.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:03

Thank you. We're really excited. I I really appreciate it. It's uh it's something fun. You know, I love Texas country music after listening to to Rita, and yeah, um, it's just it's in my blood. So I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:14

Yeah, well, I and I know it's gonna be a huge success. So well, I am glad to be back in the uh producer seat here for the podcast, and thank you all for joining us, and we will be back next week.