Latest / Your Dark Companion Podcast / WFAA's Jason Wheeler Takes Off His Shoes | Jason Wheeler | Ep 218
Transcript
- Ryder, sports talk. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. Okay. Now I get it. We got a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. Alright. Alright. Here's a tip for all these Americano League teams. Don't what? You said tip? Yeah. Tip. Okay. With a p. I would Keep jamming. The the ticket colon. Nothing but a big ginx jerk off set. Is this a cool night or what? I love somebody would hear that and go, bullshit. I'm back, bitches. What kind of experience have you had at Earth X? I haven't I've I've done a podcast with someone who was putting it on. That's it. And that's it? No, it was a couple of years ago. I haven't actually been to it. We were going to go again this year, but then we tried to set it up and we didn't get the guy we wanted and we didn't do it. Did you walk around and look I didn't go. Oh. Oh, you didn't do it? I don't have time for these pursuits. But I mean, when you were there before, did you walk Oh, We did him we did him from his he was at his house. Oh, okay. Okay. I thought maybe you get got to go down there and take a look around. It's it's quite a things. No. You don't get time for these things. Everybody's got me like Send me on the message. Oh my god. They I'm so calendared down. It's stupid. Well, it's because you're important. You matter, man. Well, I don't know. Not all indicators show that either. You know what I mean? I'll bet the one the indicators that matter most show that you matter. I'm gonna have to go review those indicators again then because there may be a few in there that do not show it. This, kids Mhmm. Is us dipping into one of our favorite places to get people to come on to YDC. That is WFAA, Channel eight, the undisputed, not even close, not even worth talking about news leader in this town. And we've had several people on with us. In fact, one is a quite the return offender, the repeat offender, if you that Jesse Howellah? That would be him. Oh. All I needed was the word offender. Yeah, we had him. Who who did have the other day? Matt Howerton. Oh, We had Matt Howerton. Wow. The shoeless Matt Harrot Howerton. Was No, he said Matt Harrison. He was, let's just say, a little bit looser than you think he might be. Yeah. I know Matt, so I'm not terribly surprised. But I do feel licensed now, like good, I can take my shoes off too. I feel sure do everything you want, man. Take your pants off if you want. Whatever you want Do not tempt me. He'll tempt you. Do not ask. And look who we have today. It is the great Jason Wheeler. Known also as just Jason Wheeler. Most people don't know any of that first part. Yeah. Well, I think you're pretty great. Well, thank you. That matters. We tried to get you a couple times before and couldn't, but I You were laid really hard to get. I not going to let you get away. Always had good reasons. I'm sure you did. We need the doctor's notes, I think. What? We need the doctor's notes like we're They back in were all doctor's notes. And I'm like a really healthy guy except I keep breaking myself. And it's stupid things that happen and I just keep breaking parts of me and have to get put back together. Like literally you break something? Like breaking things, muscles, bones. Yeah, I mean, it's become a problem. And the stupid thing is, I don't even have great stories for the things that are happening. It's dumb accidents. Now that's a bummer. If you break something and you don't have a good story to go along with it. One was a body surfing accident, which it was just ill advised. I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have been doing it. And it was on a rock beach in Hawaii. And it was beautiful, absolutely beautiful until it almost killed me and so it was this gorgeous beach black rocks is what the whole beach is made up of and there was no one there which should have been my first clue no one's swimming there It's probably maybe a little dangerous to be there. And so the waves were great and I was riding those waves and I can never body surf worth a damn. But on that day, I was. But what I didn't realize was as I rode this monster great wave, the beach there ends very abruptly. And so it doesn't just kind of peter out at the end and leave you sitting there on the rocks. The wave just curls at the very end and dumps you straight down in this case straight onto my head, which I felt in my spine immediately. Holy crap. So yeah, just a dumb like you don't want to tell that story at a cocktail party because then everybody's just like, oh wow, good for you. You know, like. Tell the story, bro. Yeah. I need to make something up better. How'd you get around that? Did you have to have surgery or anything? You did? I did. It took years. The odd thing is, is it took years for that to fully become the problem that it was. You know, they knew in the beginning, like, this is gonna cause you problems someday. Let us know when that gets here. And it got here. So They weren't wrong. Yeah. So you gotta go get that back unfortunately, they were not wrong. Let's do a little biographical data on. Uh-oh. Because I don't know hardly anything about you. Oh, good. And that's the kind of biographical data I like. Where did you grow up? I grew up. I was born in depending on how you look at it on the map because it's it kind of overlaps or I don't know if it's gone back and forth but right on the borderline of Texas City and Lamarck down in the Houston area. Right right up the road from Galveston. Yeah. And so I was born there and grew up in the Houston area. League City area if anybody's familiar with that. And then I went to school at Channelview High School which if you know anything about Channelview High School that was do you remember this the movie or TV series on Pom Pom Mom? The one where the cheerleader mom The director of the Yeah. It was it was it was like a like a death kind of thing to get her kid. So that was the school. Yeah. And that's their claim to fame. So yeah. And What? Channelview's now claim to fame was Jalen Hurts. Oh it probably is. Maybe I should have said that. Let's go with Jalen Hurts. I do like that better. So I went to high school there and I was the mascot there in high school which was the Falcon and we were right there in the shadows. I mean, if you went to the old campus, there is right in the shadows of a big refinery. It could not be more Houston than that. I mean, you can see it. Yeah, from the practice fields, could see it, you know. Oh, yeah. Great. Just great to be outside. How long have you been at WFAA now? I have been there since November 2012, which is shockingly long. I've never stayed any place this long in my career. So that is one and probably the only thing I have in common with Jesse Hawila. Both of us always marvel like, man, we bounced around a lot before we got here and then something kept us here, you know? So, that's a very long time and those are dog years, you know, because this is it's a tough business. It's a tough industry. It's a tough station. Like, they, I mean, it's a there's a standard that's there and it's not an easy place to work. You don't fly under radars there. Yeah. You know? I I was in that building about the time the standard was being set. This is many years ago when Belo owned them. Mhmm. They were still in the radio game. And I was one of the I worked at one of the radio stations upstairs. Mhmm. And as I would leave every night, I would walk down those stairs and around the Channel eight newsroom. And I always had kind of a feel of what was going on in there. And, man, you could just tell. Mhmm. You could just tell that the standard was the standard and anything less was not accepted. Everybody looked stressed out. They did. They still do. But yeah. You know what? I have actually, I was thinking about you because you were in the area we can now call the radio room. It's been redone. But before they redid it, it still had the mics in there and the padding on the walls and all of that. And I actually did a couple of podcasts for our Yalitix political podcast in the same space where you used to do your magic. Wow. Really? Nice. Yeah. So we have that connection. Man, I would so love to see that and see what kind of shape is it these days. It's gone. Part's gone. The window looking in is still there, that original window. But the podcast and all of that, the audio part is gone. But it's been branded the radio room and it's got art on the walls that kind of speak to that. It's an interesting space. You need to take a tour of it Shoopy. You should. Yeah. I'd love to. I'll show you around. Okay. I'll show you around. I'll take you up all day. Oh really, I will. Yeah. How did you wind up there? Where were you before? I bounced around a lot. So I did internships in Houston, left there, went to my first market in El Paso, which was a great place to learn. And I still love El Paso to this day. I never thought about El Paso until then. Love that city. Left there, went to Pittsburgh for a while, experienced a couple of winters there and left there and came to San Antonio. And then spent some time in San Antonio, left there, went to Miami, spent several years there, which was again a great experience. Came back to Texas to Austin this time and then up to Dallas. I was looking I was looking for a change when we were in Austin and I never thought that I would ever end up in Dallas Fort Worth. I never wanted to come here. I never tried to come here until then. You know why? Why do hate our city? I did. And you know why? Because from Houston? This is again so dumb. Yes. Because I grew up in Houston and there's like curriculum there in that school right there by the refinery. They tell you, no, I mean, it was like ingrained and I don't know why, but you were always told that Dallas people they're so uppity and it's a bad place and blah, blah, blah. Well, oddly enough, we're told the same thing about Houston people too. Ours is a whole different time. Yes, I know it must be. I can only imagine the things you've heard and some of them may be true. But no, it's funny how that's just put into your head and you just think, oh, you know, I don't really wanna go there. Let me look at these other places. But then you come here and you go, why were they saying all these bad things? Like, this is it's a good place. Is this what you aspired to be when you started to Oh yeah. Plan a career for yourself? Yes. I knew, see, and I feel sorry for like a lot of these young people now because, well, first of all, they want to get you on a track now you know, in high school and college and all that. They want you at like the age of four to know, you know, have it all mapped out, you These poor kids, you know? And what if you change your mind when you're in like tenth grade? But, you know, I was one of those people who was blessed to know probably in late junior high what I wanted to do. This is what I wanted to do. And and weirdly, like I didn't know how I wanted to do it. I didn't know this the the exact thing I wanted to do. But my favorite one of all on the Houston TV stations was a man by the name of Marvin Zindler. And Oh, yeah. You know him. Everybody knows him. The late great Marvin Zindler. Eyewitness news. Yeah. And boy, he just boomed it. Man, he did. That looks like a news guy. Yeah, the best little whorehouse in Texas, the movie, Melvin P. Thorpe in there, the annoying investigative reporter, whatever, that was based on him as far as I understand. But yeah, he was the one that I just I absolutely loved what he did and weirdly now here I am. I don't do it the same way that Marvin did. Nobody should it I that should try that. One night do that that way. Just rattle the newsroom. Don't announce it, just do it. They would love that. I bet they would love Audience of two. Viral moments. And so here I am doing consumer business type things. He did a lot of consumer stuff. He was a real lookout for the little guy guy. And I really like that. He was great. I mean, if you saw him and you have a thing for the oddball television character, you had to love him. Oh, you couldn't look away from him. Yeah. You know, with the pompadour and the white it was white hair and like a rose coming out of the pocket of the suit. I mean, was, and the green blue glasses, the shades were greenish blue. I mean, guy was a character. I really should try this just one time. Just once. Just one time. That's probably all I get is just once. Sweep's week or something. I bet you got enough cachet out there where that extends you a little latitude. It's just one night. Try something like that. Just when you think that your stock is selling for a decent price, you learn very quickly that, wow, it's worth how much now? Okay. I didn't know. See, he's keeping us right on the money already. Everything's in terms of dollars and cents. How do you think that WFAA has been able to maintain this thing that makes it so much better through the years? I think it is I mean, some of it is and we kid about that stressed out room of people. They really are I mean, they just like they eat this stuff, man. They eat this stuff and sleep this stuff. And I say they, I guess, I'm in there with them. I've done it long enough that, obviously, maybe I have the gene. But I mean, it's just, there's an expectation of you there. And you just you either it's that whole sink or swim. I call that a very high level of give a damn. Yeah. And you better start swimming. And the good thing is you do mention earning some credibility with your management and all that. There is a lot of an odd amount of autonomy, I would say. So once they know that you will get it done, there's nobody hovering over you. And if there's anything I've ever hated in jobs, it's when somebody's hovering over me. Good God. Just constantly in your stuff and questioning everything that you do. And so they'll question you still, they'll put you on the hot seat sometimes about things, but they give you the breathing room to just go do what you do. And we don't want you to check every single thing with us all the time because you'll never get anything done. So that sounds like you got some clearance for the Marvin Zindler It does. Yeah. And then I'll probably have them over my shoulder for the rest of my life. But till then, it's gonna be glorious. But it's gonna feel good. Maybe whenever your last day on the air will be. And just throw it on that last day. What are they going to do, fire you? No. This sounds a lot like when I'm playing different sports, whether it be like Okay, everybody can laugh, whatever, pickleball. Go ahead. No, okay not at all. Some people talking about pickleball earlier. Yeah, okay good. Some people still think that that's like, oh that's just like really old people, it's not. So when I'm playing pickleball or tennis sometimes because I'm not great, Sometimes when I get really frustrated you talk about letting it all out. I'll just take aim with a ball and I know that it's gonna go like four courts over but I just don't care. And it feels so good to just have that release. Now it's unfair to my partner, you always get a look like what was that? But it feels so good to just put every bit that you have in there of just angst and anger and frustration and just let that thing sail. And so it'll be like that. There you go, That'll be my going out, I'll just leave Yeah, it all leave everything on the field. I have been warned not to pick up racquetball because it's, they say that if you already have I was gonna say you'll probably break something. First of all, we have that. Secondly, they say that if you have a frustrating sport already, don't pick up another frustrating sport. Is that Yeah. What sport is not frustrating? Know? I would imagine that most sports are not frustrating if you have some talent in them or you're good at them. I'm not good at anything. I'm not naturally no, I'm serious. So like we talk about this, like I'll go to things whatever and you know speaking engagements and this and this conversation has come up a couple of times like I'm always like amazed by talents of other people and invariably the conversation comes up like, well what's your talent? And I always like I and I've really thought about this. I've put thought into it. I have no natural talent. There is no natural like he was born with it. We always knew that he would you know shine with that whatever. The only talent I have is to work really hard to try to get better at something that I'm bad at or that I've had issues trying to make right. That's not a bad thing to do. It's it's actually really Hello. That sounds like me. There you go. I know I liked you for some reason. With kindred spirit. We are. Scrappy guys. Scrappy guys, I like that. Can I be scrappy? You can be shooty, I'll be scrappy. Yeah, perfect. I like that. He was my favorite character on Scooby Doo too by the way. Hell yeah. Scrappy was Hell the yeah. Usually when they bring in the baby the show is over. Oh yeah. That's when the show began. Went to another level. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Until he became the bad guy in the movie. Oh. I didn't watch the movie. Spoiler alert. I'm not Damn it. Here's how it ends. Yeah. Twenty plus years. Let's just ruin the surprise. Well, I haven't seen it and now I'm not going Well, to because of that saved me $3. You know, one thing I noticed about you as I've watched you over the years, Jason Mhmm. Is that you seem to be able to do virtually anything that might have to do with Channel eight news. I mean, you seem very versatile. You seem, I hate to put it this way, almost like a Swiss army knife for them down there because you can do so much stuff. I've done everything, haven't you? You are correct. You know that old jack of all trades, master of none. And you know that is good. I say this to people all the time because you know, that, you know, we do money stuff and job stuff and all that. It is very good job security to know as many things at your workplace as possible. Become the indispensable player who, you know, just, you know, they can't get rid of, they can always get rid of you, but become the person it's going to really hurt to get rid of. And so know how to do as many things as possible. The downside of that is they know that you know how to do all of the things and you might end up doing all of the things. Yeah. And so then your bandwidth just flies out the window. And I always liken it to, I always try to say that, okay, if we're gonna put something else on the plate, we're gonna have to take something off because it's like one of those really flimsy barbecue outdoor paper plates. Yeah. And I've already Commercial. Yes. The one that's really sagging, the one that's the bad guy in the commercial and it's really sagging and it's not two ply and there's art. I put a lot of wet stuff on it. So there's we got liquid dripping. We got barbecue sauce and coleslaw stuff dripping out and we should not add something else on here unless we take at least a fork load of something else off. Beans, how did I forget baked beans? Because they're so wet. So yeah, a lot of wet stuff on that paper plate. Again, it's good to be able to do different roles. It's good filling in. It's good plugging yourself into different things. Me, as long as, and God love him, Matt Howerton. I want you to stay healthy and well and never take a day off. I can't the one thing I can't hardly bring myself to do is anything related to the early morning show. And it's a hugely important Yes. Thing. It's it's a it's a it's a big golden child wonderful thing. But I just I'm telling you there is something visceral. Some of us you raised your hand. I do not do morning. Yes. I do not do morning. For some of us, there is just there's a code that's written into our circadian rhythm where we go not it's not just an inconvenience. I feel like I'm dying when I get up at that hour. I have literally stayed up overnight to catch an early flight overseas. And been okay. Yes. Totally functional. That's what I say. Can I will stay up long into the night but I just, when that alarm goes off, I mean, it's like pain goes through my body and it doesn't stop? And like I stand up and I can't even get ready. Like I just stand there frozen and I don't know what to do. Know, like it's just, Yeah. Well, it killed us. When we had Matt Howerton on, he said that he was going to bed at like 06:30. Yeah, I just looked at the clock to see what time it was. It's 06:11 right now. Let's call have him. His jammies. We had to push him off the show. We're like Yeah. What's your bedtime? Think the biggest surprise in all of that exchange just now, he wears jammies? As far as I know, does. Okay. Yeah. Okay. A little feet can't away. Stay dressed in the podcast. Yeah. I know. But he wears clothes to bed. He's a weird guy like that. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Just a top or maybe just a bottom. More than we ever want. He's just like Winnie the Pooh and just wears the the top shirt. Nothing else underneath. We're have nightmares about Matt Howerton tonight. I'll tell you what, he was wild when he was in the He's heat of my a wild guy. Yeah, he is. He was, He what did was a lot of fun. Yeah, he was cranking a Pantera. Oh yeah. You know, and chugging three Monster energy drinks or something? I've told him about those. Oh, you're the problem? No. I've told him I've told him about those. Okay. Like, that's a lot. Not yet. That's a lot of stuff you're taking in there. It affected him. This from I mean, I drink coffee like crazy, but I mean I don't touch the energy drinks. That's too much. It's like a different breed of stimulant. I've never tried one. Don't stay away. We need you around. Yeah, it feels a lot to me like the drink version of a 3AM wake up call. That's what it's like. It's like you just, you're rattled. Oh man. Know funny thing, when I worked in Miami, have you ever been to Miami? Everybody has been there? Been there for the Super Bowl a couple of times. It's an interesting place. It's very interesting place to live and work. But when I first moved there, I wasn't familiar with everything and they used to do these cafecitos where it was Cuban coffee and it is a different kind of coffee. I've learned that since then that does have more caffeine in it. There's different beans. And I didn't know that at the time and I was filling in that night and they said hey there's cafecito up at the desk and I was like oh great. So I go up there, they serve it in a Styrofoam cup like what would be considered a small anywhere where you go to order something and then there's a big stack of thimbles, little plastic thimbles, little cups, tiny cups. And you're supposed to just pour that into the cup and I just thought why do they do this? Do they not don't they have enough? And so everybody had already had theirs and so I was like well if everybody else has already had theirs, I'm just gonna take So it still had maybe a fourth or half in there. And I went to my desk, I start drinking this, it's really good and it's loaded with sugar and but super strong like it's a really strong taste. And I'm telling you, didn't even finish it and like thirty minutes in, I'm typing and my hands are just shaking and I feel nervous. I feel anxious about it. I hadn't put two and two together yet. And I'm just sitting there like, oh my god, something's wrong with me. My stomach feels weird and I like have butterflies. Like a panic attack or something. Yeah, felt like I was having a panic attack, and I looked at someone next to me and she was, I think she was Dominican, and I said to her, hey, what's going on with me? Whatever and she goes, did they give you that? And I said, no, I took it. And she goes, how much of that have you had? And I go, I had like maybe half of the half you know. And she goes, oh my god, you've had way too much. You can't do that. You can't do that. And so then everybody's laughing about it, but I'm like, can we settle the emergency first and then we'll laugh about it tomorrow. Does everyone know where the defibrillator is right now? Did not know that. Wow. How was the come down from it? It was harsh because it was sugar and caffeine. Right. And so you had that just rush and then at the end of the night it was like you felt like you had been on like a three day bender and somebody had beaten you up. Like it just like it does something to your body where you just go, man, I just got walloped. And I'm glad I learned the lesson before I went further and had like the whole thing. That would have been brutal. I don't know what the caffeine content is of that, but it's got to be if I was lucky. Thank God she spotted it and she was like, well, I go, look at me, I'm just shaking. Who gave you that? I took it. Do you know right away when a story is a good one for you? No. Well, sometimes I do. But there have been some that have been like these occult stories where you just you you go well let me let me pursue this and I'm gonna see what I find on it or whatever and you put it together and you're happy enough with it. And then it does this like some gargantuan number on the website and you start getting just these emails and these texts or messages, direct messages on social media and you go, my god. This just hit this cord with people that I did not expect. And I think early on, one of the subjects that that happened with was a property tax story. And I know, you know, it's I I dread it like anyone else, whatever, but I did something on that and I thought, okay, well, there's my little story done and you're moving on to the next thing. And I mean, it just starts ringing up the hit because everybody is looking for that info. None of us were schooled on this stuff, you know, and it's hard to to know all of these things and you don't have classes for this stuff and it's intimidating and it's, you you might think even that it's boring and you just don't wanna even read that article about it. And and it's amazing when you can put it into bite sized chunks that are more understandable and relatable and here's what to do about it. Man, it just takes off like wildfire. How do you guys at WFAA determine who gets to do what? Sometimes, it is offered up on the email system and there's some like and I'm always skeptical when another reporter is giving away a story. Like why are you giving that away? Do you know that it's not is there a catch here somewhere? Because some of them seem like gems, you know, and you're like, why would you offer this to others? You know? Maybe they're more giving than I am? I don't know. But I I think if I had that I would totally like put my arms around it. Nobody else is gonna get it. But is there a guy who assigns it or? They do. We have meetings that I don't go to those because I don't do general assignment anymore. But back in the day, I used to go to those meetings and I would pitch my ideas and we'd hear other ideas. And I usually tried to latch on to other ideas because my ideas usually weren't like the best, know. But then they would always go, no, we're gonna have you do your idea. That sounds good. And you just go, oh my God, how am I actually gonna turn that story today? You know, like, why did I ever say that? So, you know, you're stuck with it. You gotta make it work. But again, it's that expectation like, uh-uh, you come in here into this newsroom, you start throwing things out and you're gonna do that. And not only you're gonna do it, you better do it real well, you know? So there's that pressure from the beginning of the day. It never ends. It doesn't. That's why you're so great. So great. This is So so Jason Wheeler Oh, great. Of WFAA TV. And we'll be back with more with Jason. I wanna talk to you a little bit about the things you are probably best known for that you're doing these days. Oh, okay. And how those came about. But right now, if you wanna relax, just kick back over there. I'm already relaxed, I have no shoes on. That's pretty good. That's good life. You can take off more. That's right. You're just almost asking me to do this. We want a full Howerton. Three energy drinks later, there Right I now, though, it is time for the dreaded and feared mid show read. Yes. Alright. Now I have here in my hands the full spectrum Sav Stick. I get this from the House of Healing, and I have it because, number one, these days I need it. It helps me. It will help me because things have started hurting, man. I'm an old guy. You know? I'm an old guy. When you're an old guy, things start hurting. And you need something to help you get around it. I found that this works quite, quite well, but they have more at the CBD House of Healing than just that. You want CBD? They got it over there. They've got all kinds of good stuff. So if you're roaming around this world in pain, there is no reason for that. What you need to do is stop by the the CBD House of Healing, talk to the owner. She is a registered nurse. Tell her what's going on with you, and chances are she will be able to suggest something that will work. She did it for me. She can do it for you too. The CBD House of Healing is located at Plano Road and Northwest Highway in the northeast quadrant of that burgeoning intersection. Drop by, tell em you heard about it from us here on YDC and start your healing at the CBD House of Healing. Is that it? Oh, okay. Time to discuss the Eric Nadel Birthday Benefit Concert. It's coming up. It's fourteenth edition. It features two of Eric's favorite bands. I don't know if you know this about Eric, but he's a real music lover kind of guy. But he does not dwell in the mainstream. He's out there on the fringes looking for stuff that nobody knows about. And when he finds somebody he likes, he brings him in to play at his birthday benefit concert. This year, It is Brooklyn based Sammy Ray and the Friends and Bay Bay Area favorite Chuck Provett and the Kumbia shoes. This is gonna be coming down Thursday, May 14. Doors open at 06:30. Showtime, 07:30, and it's all at the legendary Longhorn Ballroom. Now that's a whole another thing in itself because I don't know if you've been to the Longhorn Ballroom yet and seen what they've done over there as they brought it back to life, but it is just amazing. You won't believe the history that you find when you walk through those halls over there. Now this supports the work of the Grant Halliburton Foundation. That's a local nonprofit that provides mental health education, training, and support to teens and families. To learn learn more and purchase tickets, go to grandhalliburton.org/ericnadel. Sponsored tables and suites are also available. Come see us. The YDC team will be there on the purple carpet. Eric Nadel's birthday benefit presented by Haynes Boones and KXT ninety one point seven FM featuring Sammy Ray and the friends and special guest Chuck Proffitt. Go to grandharlhaliburton.org/ericnadel or go to stolenwatermedia.com/ourcommunity. Is that it? Think so. All right. Excellent. Very good. I love ninety one point seven. It's great. Oh, it's so good. I don't think I've ever listened. It's really good. Oh, you need to listen to it for sure. Yeah, Becca. Okay. You're right. Yeah, Becca. Yeah. Now our guest here today is the great Jason Wheeler. I think it's applause again. WFAI. I keep on to call it Channel eight. That's fine. Even though it was channel eight, that's that's all people used to call it. It's what a lot of people still call it. Yeah. Yeah. They although some people still they'll get the number wrong with me. They do that a lot. Hey, it's channel whatever fill in the blank and you know, you just you know, once they get started and they're wound up or whatever, you just kind of go along with it. Know, obviously they're watching the right channel or they wouldn't You know? Yeah. Just like a lot of people think that they're talking to either the weatherman or the sports guy too. They I get a lot of that. Hey, what's the weather gonna be like today? You know, and I don't It's a thing for those those of us in the in the media, it's a thing. Yeah. I don't correct anyone anymore. Just go along with it. I go, it's partly cloudy and I have 72. You want me to be on the fan? Hell, I'm on the fan. What the hell? It's gonna be raining tomorrow. Tomorrow. I mean, why burst someone's bubble? They're watching. They're just not putting everybody in their exact roles. Yeah. Reiner, I love you on that Muse and the News. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Well, I'm interested in how you landed on the two things that you seem to be most known for these days. Weather and sports. Not even. One is Right on the Money. Right on the Money is an experiment that we started in 2019. Was this your idea? Softly was, but not really. So I used to do a lot of consumer y type stories and that's part of the reason why I think they hired me here because they liked those and they wanted more of that because that was on my reel that they saw when I applied here. And so they said, hey we want you to start doing this thing and we want you to name it and we want you we want it to be like involving anything money whatever money you figure that part out, you come up with subjects, you put them together and we're gonna have somebody edit them you're going to it all on green screen. So it's going to be this interactive screen that you can interact with the whole time. And I said, Okay, that's a lot. But yeah, I'm willing to do all that. That sounds interesting, whatever. I just need one guarantee and they said name it and I go I just need whoever does the edit on these to be the same person every time because I saw that you know know right away that that's gonna be the heavy lift right there right? And so they were like done. We're gonna get somebody we got people with great skills. We'll have somebody do it. And I think in the first year I went through maybe 10 different people. And it wasn't that they just were terrible at making promises to me and they wanted to make my life really hard. It was just the nature of how TV works, you know. And it became like I was the short straw guy. Like they would go up to someone and go hey you're gonna be doing right on the money this week and they'd be like why? You know like because backwards baby. Because they had heard you know because it is really hard to edit all of that green screen stuff in because you're creating everything from the beginning. So very difficult. I don't green screen for a reason. Yeah, it's hard and people Guess don't what changes next week. Welcome to Green Screen Ashley. So we finally got this whiz of a guy and his name is Austin and he is just amazing at what he does. And so for each one of these that I create, I create the actual piece that I record and then I go in and I write an entirely separate script that goes line by line in parentheses of what my mind is thinking for this and this and this and this and this. And then I tell Austin, you're gonna think of things that are like 10 times better than this. So feel free to override me And then we create a web script out of every one of them that has links for people to actually go and do the things that our solutions or whatever. And it has more info on there. So each piece is three. But we've gotten this cadence down and thank God I am with the same guy every time we do one of these because you don't want somebody on the fly having to polish up their old green screen edit skills, you know? See, I don't think of that stuff because I watch right on the money, and it's you, you're always so cool, so polished, so Professional, polished. Are. And professional. You're great, man. I don't think you said that. You might not be able to get me out of this chair, staying, moving in. But I mean, like it just comes naturally to you to talk that, speak that language and have that conversation. By the time you've seen that though, now some of these come off of my fingertips really fast if it's a subject that I'm very familiar with. I'm learning a lot of this stuff with you. You know, like I know portions of this and the great thing is, as I've lived a life where I have and and I'm not kidding. I wish this was the joke. Where I have made so many mistakes with all of these things, car, house, job, salary, debt, credit cards, you name it, student loans. I've made so many mistakes. But the great thing is, is that it gave me great familiarity with all of these things from a different point of view. And so now I just had to go fill in the rest of the point of view and create that. So by the time you've seen it and you think that I'm all cool and polished and professional, I did remember all of those adjectives. By the time you see it, I have read and read and read and read. I mean, I do so much reading, it's unreal. And pull little pieces from each thing and try to find a way to take this further to actually help people who are going through it or to have them have an understanding about it that they didn't have before. And by the time you see it, I'm on take 16 in front of that green screen. And this is with a prompter. So bad because like you turn to like reference something that's not really there but you know what's going to be there and as soon as you turn it's it's so stupid like you can't remember the simplest you know V that comes after that and you get back and you're just lost in the prompter and so just know when you see these that every now and then I get it in first take. Usually I don't but in the early days we shot them without a teleprompter and it was an actual photographer down there with me who probably wanted to kill me on many of those days. Because I'm not kidding. Was like, take 44. We were breaking this into little pieces and stuff. And I'm telling you, was tedious. And when I got that prompter one day, was just like, ah, I can breathe again, you know? It's amazing. Boy, that must've made all the difference. It did. It sped things along to the point where they could say, hey, we want several of these a week. Now that you've gotten it down, let's give you more. Let's do more. Yeah. You've got time savings in there. So you didn't have a true financial background before it. I did not. Since then What you talk a good game. Yeah, damn right. Fooled you. Well, do think I did have a financial background. Think, and I always say this, and it's not just with this. We have people on sometimes. And the question I like the most is what do most people do wrong with this? What are we doing wrong? And I do have a financial background. I did a lot of things wrong. And it's amazing the lessons that teaches you where you go, ah, let me go share this gold bar with the world. And I mean, I've actually had people who have said to me, you have saved us thousands and thousands of dollars just with that episode. That saved us thousands of dollars. I'm not surprised, man. And that to me is like, that is almost as good as cool and polished and professional. Almost. But honestly, like, knowing that you mess something, having that financial knowledge, I mess this up. Yes. If all of us could do that, we would not make the same mistakes over and over. Absolutely correct. You still have a different understanding than the average person. Yeah. And since then, I have gotten my I found that I was doing a ton of property taxes and property related because all of us, for most of us anyway, our biggest investment is always going to be our home. And so I found that I was doing so much of that and I'd get into these discussions with experts and some of the lingo and what I, So I did get my real estate license just so and it helped me tremendously. And in fact when I got it, as I was going through these books and I actually did, I know some people like skim through. I actually read all of this stuff and I had highlighters and I kept highlighting things and like earmarking the page. And I thought I'm gonna do a whole series and we're gonna call it homeschooling. And I did a whole series on the stuff when I learned and got my license that every one of us should have been taught, that all of us should know. And we did a whole series on that. And think it was really beneficial because it was eye opening to me as a homeowner. You ought to repeat, have you repeated that series yet or is it out there? I should. You know, somebody just asked the other day and some of these don't get the, you know, life, I guess, that they should have. So sometimes we'll put together like award entries or whatever for TV because, you know, TV people love to go to award ceremonies and I always am like, I'm not entering that. I'm not entering anymore. I've got all the Emmys I can stand. And so I always go in thinking I'm not gonna enter that and they go, come on, just look through a few of them, whatever. And Austin you know I have the soft spot in my heart for Austin because he does the heavy lifting on these. He says I really want to enter him. Was like oh god you know of course they sent Austin and so I'll start going through the pieces that we've done in that quarter or that year or whatever And it's just like, wow, there's some really good information in here. I never have time. I mean, I see them in house before they air, but I usually don't see them air. I just see them and approve them, you know, to say everything's good. And I don't see them air and like I'm always on to the next and the next and the next and the next and before you know it like like somebody will say remember you did a piece on that and you're like no I didn't do that and I haven't done one on that and they're like yeah you did you know you're like well it must have been years ago and they're like it was two months. And so when I'm watching these things I always think like man we should re air this. Like this still has legs. Like this is still affecting everyday people And so we've done a couple of specials that we've done like on streaming or we'll take over the 4PM news and we'll just run an hour of me. So if somebody, mean and there's plenty of people out there who don't like me I'm sure who are like, oh my gosh, this whole hour is gonna be this. So, so yeah, I That's what they say when they tune into YDC. An entire hour. So, yeah, some of them Join us. Yeah. Some of them should have other life, I think. And and somebody just the other day, in fact, requested that we rerun the death checklist. Because I did a whole death checklist series of all the stuff that none of us wants to think about. And it seems morbid and it seems awful, but if you've ever had to go through probate for someone in your family who died and you're the executor, which I just went through, by the way, you learned that, man, it would be great if we had all just known this stuff. We should make this simple so that when you go, people can grieve you or hate you or whatever they did with you, but they don't have to go, oh, man. Why did you leave us in this bind? Why did you leave all of this unanswered? You know? You have a lot on YouTube. Do you have your own YouTube channel? I should. I do, but I don't have anything hardly on it. And I should catalog it all in one place to make it a lot easier. Have a lot of goals like that. I should also be more involved on social media and I just I'll tell you I used to be really good at it and there was a day when we went through the pandemic And during the pandemic, it was hell for a lot of people. A lot of people were in hell. And they were losing their jobs or they loo would lose their income for a a good deal of time. And they didn't know what was happening with unemployment benefits because the state's unemployment system just melted down under the pressure of that. And I had a contact there at the Texas Workforce Commission and they were feeding me information that you could not get. Their website was crashing, their phones were crashing, you couldn't get through. And I was getting information from them and I was putting out stuff that no one in the state had because of that lifeline. And I mean people were eating, there was like a voracious appetite. I mean people were struggling and people would ask me further questions and I would take those back to the person and they would answer those and it would answer it for so many. And so I would spend every night for I don't know how long it was it was a long time. I would come home when I was done with my day and those days were really long days. Y'all remember. It was a it was a weird time. And I would sit there and answer questions on Facebook and Twitter and direct messages and I mean hundreds on some days and my wife kept saying you need to stop this this is gonna kill you. Like I can see it like you spend hours here every night and I was like you can't read this stuff and not answer this. And so I did that for a very long time and then I took a break and just pulled away after the worst of it was over. And I still post things on there and I still try to interact but I've never been able to go back to it the same way again. It's like there's this lasting burnout. But I try to get to it. I can imagine. I'm gonna try to create that YouTube page too. I've got a whole list of things I need to do. Now the other thing you are very well known for is the series you share with Jason Whiteley. Yes. Yallitix. Yes. How did that come about? I named that one too. Nice. So I named Right on the Money and I named Yallitix. And I didn't trademark either. Yeah, gonna ask you got any royalties or anything like that. Stupid stupid guy. Told you I've made every financial mistake there is. If you think of something copyright it folks. No, we Yes, yes. My ex wife named the ticket. Did we copyright it? No. We didn't think of glass. How would you do that? The mailbox money that just could have kept coming. So that one was also an experiment. They wanted to this was also in 2019 before the twenty twenty election. Is that right? Yeah. Again, it's dog years. It feels like it's like eons ago. And they said, let's just we wanna do a political podcast. Let's just try it, whatever. We'll see how it goes. And, you know, we'll we'll do it until the election. And we're like, okay, you know, and so we started doing it. And we thought that once that twenty twenty election was over, you know, hotly contested, whatever, that that would be it. And we actually found that people were coming to us even more after the election. And after we moved through that whole crazy transition after that, and when we were just talking about issues and it was just it's conversations about political issues. But it's real regular conversations with people who aren't screaming at each other or at each other's throats where you're actually learning, oh, that's why they have that position or that's what this issue is about. And it's amazing that there's an appetite for, can you give me more than just ten seconds of people yelling at each other? Yeah. And we have a beer in the podcast too. And that helps too because it loosens up the people we're talking to. Mean, even before they have the first drink, it just feels a little bit more relaxed. And it has lasted all this time. And the the like numbers that we've gotten on that thing are just it it amazes me when I see and you just think, wow, this is really taken off on its own. And y'all know what it's like with podcasts. You can look at like, where are people listening to this? And it's the weirdest thing like you're like wow there's an expat community in like Latvia. They're regularly listening to that. I mean it's amazing like on all these continents you just you see people listening and that's kind of stunning when you think about it. Yeah. It's weird. So it was another experiment that just stuck, and it lasted. And here we are, and it's still going strong. It's great, man. You guys are I mean, you guys really have good chemistry together, the two of you. Thanks. I I think it's one of those push pulls. We may have just enough in common to want to hit each other every now and then. You know what I mean? I'm not saying that you're alike or anything like that because there's definitely enough difference between the two of you. Oh, totally. That I'm the way better one. It let me tell you this. Jason Whiteley, and I don't know what it is. He has this hang up. Jason Whiteley is always you walk into the newsroom and like if I don't have to be on TV until 04:00 or 03:30 or whatever, if I'm not recording anything, I'm gonna be there in regular clothing. Okay? Like regular stuff that normal people wear. Jason Whiteley has his suit totally on jacket included August. Mean and we have air conditioning but I mean he's wearing a full suit with a tie that's cinched all the way to the top. You'll never see me. If I'm not on air, you will never see me with a tie cinched all the way to the top. And he sits there like that all day long. I don't understand that. Wow, golly. He's the weird one, am I right? Yes. Okay, but he makes it look like I'm the weird one and like I walk in the room and it's like he can be busier than you can imagine and he will stop what he's doing to look me up and down like he's obsessed. And oh, hey Wheeler, did you just roll out of bed? Is that a t shirt you're wearing there? And it's like, it's a polo shirt. It's a nice, like why do you feel the need every day? It's every day. And like we'll be in a podcast and if I'm under the table, I've got my shoes off, if anyone's gonna notice it, it's gonna be Jason White. It drives him crazy. And I think it really it's more than just I'm gonna rib you for that. I think it makes him mad. I really do. And I'm serious and you know he may see this. Yeah, hear this. But I think it really watches this. Somebody, Matt Howerton's gonna watch this and tell Jason like, there you go. But no he will like it bothers him and so not long ago we were talking with the DA, John Crusoe, the outgoing DA and interestingly I had my shoes on that day and was wearing a little bit nicer clothes I guess and interestingly he said to Jason, and Jason thought he was talking to me, he goes, Would you have dressed like that during the pandemic? And Jason looks at me and I'm like, Uh-uh he's talking to you clearly. And it was because Jason was wearing like these loafers without socks. And we were just talking about like how we were more casual during the pandemic. And I bet it drove him crazy that of all the things that could have been noticed about the two of us by a big time guy, it was him and that he didn't have socks on. He was the casual one. Nobody was saying anything about me because I had my dress shoes and socks on. So he doesn't even do suit with fancy tennis shoes? No. He the the the most casual he gets was on a day like that where he has suit with different colored jacket than slacks which I don't usually do. I'll usually do the matching. But he had different color jacket than slacks, and then he had the the the nice loafers. They're nice, but no socks. And and and and socks or no seams? No. They were no socks. Oh. Is he the most finicky dresser at Channel eight? I think probably I think that most people would tell you there that the best dresser is Greg Fields in the mornings. That's who I suspected. Yeah. Yeah. Pete is Pete is like a real serious dresser too. And like his wife gets all into it and like picks out combinations and stuff. And he likes to go jack it off. Yeah. If it's really bad. Yeah. Yeah. And the sleeves get rolled up and you're like, oh boy. My gosh, let me go pull the car into the garage. Yep, sleeves up, car into garage. That's it. It's a formula. No joke. But yeah, Jason's in that club. He's he's very picky and and he he always looks great. He really does. Even with the loafers with no socks which I I can't do the loafers with no socks. Jason. No. Let's start a rumor that his feet stink. Oh, absolutely. That's how I know that it wasn't that he was wearing the no see o's. There you go. Because I could smell them. No, I'm kidding. I'm joking. That's a joke. Get some mood readers, dude. Hey, I've never been able to do the loafers with no socks either. Mm-mm, no. Just wear flip flops? Yeah, always wear flip Which are terrible for you, by the way. No, they're not. Hate to tell you this. I'm sure they are. They do. I'm sure they are. That's not gonna get me out of it. They mess up like the, okay, so I have really super flat feet. Like my feet are completely flat on the bottoms. And I was wearing flip flops for a long time and I went to this podiatrist and I go, man I'm having so many like pains in my ankles, know and he goes, well you have really flat feet, let me, can you know stand up and I'm not gonna be an exam, just walk for me and he goes, I want you to walk down to the you know door down there whatever And I start walking and he goes, just stop, stop, stop. Like three steps in, just stop. And I was like, God, is it that bad? He was like, it's that bad. It's like this As hell when you walk barefooted? Yeah, but it's like a collapsing ankle. Like the fallen arch. Yeah, because you have no arch there. So your ankle is compensating in a way that it was not designed to do. And so he's like, don't ever wear flip flops again ever, like ever. And so, and then I had to have inserts made. And so I got these custom inserts that go in the shoes that give arch there and they hurt really bad at first because your feet are not used to that. And then all of a sudden like one day you just go wow this feels like I'm walking on clouds and wow it doesn't feel like I it always felt like did you all see misery? Yes. With Kathy Bates the you haven't seen misery? I'm sorry. It's one of the. Neither have I. That is a really. Don't No? Go ahead and tell them how it ends. No, no, no. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, there's a scene in it. It doesn't end well. She's she's I mean, it's called misery. Yeah. That sounds terrible. Kathy Bates is an amazing actress. And there's a point in it where she's got this guy and she's basically holding him hostage and he can't move out of his bed that she has him in and she takes a sledgehammer to both ankles and that's how it would feel after like a night of tennis. You know, again, the next morning, it was like, oh my god. So, yeah, inserts are great but I loved flip flops and I had to say goodbye to all of my flip flops. I've. Oh. I've gotten those Chocos and it's, you know, it's kind of like the the it's similar to whether that's what what are the other ones that have the straps? You know what I'm talking about? Birkenstocks? Birkenstocks. Yeah. It's like those. Crocs makes actual flip flops with arches built in. Oh, interesting. I'm gonna have to look into that. Yeah, maybe you can jump back in that pool. Ask that podiatrist about this. He told me never again. And please stop walking, sit down You broke right his heart apparently. I did, Like I broke that test. Yeah. I didn't even make it past his It's door to get to the other like just- Just stop. Yeah. Please lay down. Sit down. What if they came to you and said, we want you to anchor the six and ten? Would you do it? I used to think I wanted that. But I would say, first of all, no, because Chris is a great guy. He needs to be doing that. And he loves it. And he's good at it. But I think I'm right now where I need to be, which is a weird thing to say. No, that's a good thing to say. I always tell other people that. Like I always tell people wherever you are right now and know, like these kids in college or whatever ask for advice and stuff and I always tell them hey you know just keep plugging away, gotta keep working hard as someone who that's their only talent, keep working hard. I'm not gonna tell you that story but I always tell them keep working hard and just know that whatever you have done up to now has put you where you are now. And what you're doing now, you're where you need to be. And when the next thing is right, it will be. And then I always doubt that for myself. It is poetic. Is as poetic as I get. But I really do believe that because there have been so many times in my life when I have thought like I've been passed over or I'm I'm I'm failing or this isn't going right and then it takes later on when I look back and I go oh my god that was exactly like that needed to go. As bad as that was, I needed to go through that, you know? Yeah. It's amazing how that works. Yep. There are all kinds of situations where you look back on them and you say, well, had to go through that to get to where I am now. They form you. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's kind of the natural order of things, although you don't realize that at the time. Yeah. Like everything you've done led you here Yeah. To your own house, your own rules. Yeah. Doing what interests you. Yes. Asking the questions you want to ask that not that someone else wants to ask and the ability to have the freedom to do it. But you In one segment. Yeah. In one segment. But the thing is is everything that you everything you went through prepared you to be this guy now. Yeah. You know, the chill, easy, laid back. This wouldn't have worked with you of twenty years ago. No, it wouldn't have. You know? I was not that way then. Yeah. You would have kicked me out of here by now. Most boring person I've ever talked to. Get out of here, you know? Well, man, thanks for doing this. This was a pleasure. This was a lot of fun. Real quick? Yeah. Would you like some breaking sports news? Yes. If you got it? Cooper Flag? Yeah. Depending on who you ask. Cooper Flag? Oh, he win We were just talking about that. To the surprise of absolutely no one. I blundered about it. Nico's gone. I'm I'm still I will say I know we're done but I'm still not over that trade. Where were you? That's his question. You know, I was at home. I was at home and I didn't believe it. My mom told me because she was visiting and she said, they traded Luca and I was like mom, know where are you? And she goes, saw it on my phone and I go, Stop doing you did those weird slides. I asked her what site are you looking at? And she was like ESPN and I was like, oh wait. I was stunned. And I'm still stunned by that. Did you call anybody to find out if they'd seen it too or anything? No, then I pulled out my phone and I just sat there aghast. I couldn't believe it. This is going to be a Hall of Fame inductee one day, easy. And you just, how? I don't understand. And I mean I just I don't understand it I guess. And I think I was a little bit personally invested more than I normally would be because when they went to the finals the year before I proposed, hey, we should go to Slovenia. I should get a trip out of this and we should go to Slovenia. Never worked harder in my life. I don't know why I said that. But we went to Slovenia and this guy is a beyond rock star there obviously. And we got to meet his coaches and people who knew him and worked with him and trained him and all of that. And I think you develop kind of a personal even I've never met him but you develop this personal rapport seeing where they grew up and how they grew up and with whom they grew up and and these are the greatest people and I don't know. I just like I it just felt like such a loss. And I usually don't feel that way about things like that. I just felt like I lost something there. Know? I loved watching him. It's been hard for everybody to take. You know? I loved watching him too. Now I was I was one of those, and there weren't many of us who didn't think he was going to be a career maverick. Yeah. But You were right. Yeah. But while here, man, it it watching him play was like nothing I've ever seen before. I mean And I get it. They wanted him in better shape and all that. So I get that. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. But there was not another way, you know, I mean, it just, I loved watching him. He was electric. It was like watching, it's one thing to go watch professional basketball and see, it's amazing what they do on any on a Tuesday night, Wednesday, whenever they play. It's amazing just on its own. Very talented people. It's another level when you can do that and be an entertainer at the same time. Yeah. And he did that. Yeah, he did that. He made you just not wanna look away. If you were with somebody who was talking to you, they just talked to the side of your head because you didn't wanna look away because you're gonna miss this trick pass or this crazy, you know, like he's he's got putting people on skates who are trying to defend him and they just look like they're just falling backwards and forward. I mean, was just amazing. I hated to see him go. Hated to see him go too. But congrats to Cooper. Hell yeah. That is well earned, well deserved, and I'm glad he wasn't cheated of that honor because it is it should have been him. You know No brainer. He's a very unusual player too. Yeah. Will he last here? Yeah. Yeah. He will. Okay. He will. Because you know. You knew. I thought he'll be career maverick. Okay. Woah. Wow. Yes. I really think so. On the record. Yes. There you go. Wow. Cooper Flagg, career maverick. Remember Heard it here first. Guaranteed, nothing can go wrong now. Nothing can go wrong now. Do not body surf. Don't body surf on a beach where no one else is in the water or on the shore. If no one else is around, there's probably a reason. Go somewhere else. That's right. Thanks for doing this, man. It's really been nice talking to you and we appreciate it. I love this. Thank you for having me. That is the great Jason Wheeler of WFAA. You see him there. You see us here, and we will be back later on the week with another one of these. In the meantime, what we want from you is to help us get out there, share us, Put us on social media, stuff like that. We got another thing here. Oh god. Yeah. You let it But Oh, yeah. I did let it go. There's always more. Oh, there is always more. Everybody that they we have a website now. Okay. Yeah. We got a website now. And we are moving away from Patreon, and we're trying to get you to go to the website. So let us tell you about the website here. Stolen Water Media is making a move. It's time for us to change. As we've been growing, we need a little bit more than what we've had. Now you can continue to view all eight of our podcasts on our Patreon pages. But now you can get all episodes @www.StolenWaterMedia.com. That is our website, and it's all there for you. This is a much, much easier way for you to find whatever you want here on YDC. Just wondering with Norm Hitska, Sal Maximo, Beer thirty Sports O'Clock, the Clubhouse Podcast, the Angle Angle, Signal 51 Chronicles, and the Sunset Soccer Club. They are all there for you on the website. Now this is a developing story, but you can begin watching and listening now. Go to stolenwatermedia.com and continue to find all audio wherever you find your favorite podcasts and some places where you've never even heard of. You all continue to support us and our success. We feel the love. We appreciate it. Stick with us as we made this move. And always, as always, rate us, leave us a review wherever you follow us, share us, recommend us to your family and friends. Thank you very, very much from all of us here at Stolen Water. Thanks to the great Jason Wheeler. Thank you. Thanks to Ashley. Thanks to Shoopy. Thanks to Becca. Thanks to all of you. Bye. All right. I'm gonna go take your pants off. You're Dark Companion is a stolen water media presentation.