Hey, welcome to the very first episode of Dan Time. I'm your host, Dan McCardle. You're here. You made it. You're back. You're back. You showed up. You followed through. You heard something on the trailer that made you think, eh, okay. Alright, I'll check it out. I'll give it one shot. I'll see what it's all about. Or, alright, I know Dan. I know Dan from somewhere. This is interesting. I got 15 minutes. What, you know, I'll, I'll burn it on, on his show. Well, you're going to be glad you did.
You came to the right place. And this show, like I said on the trailer, is going to deliver impactful guests on a weekly basis that mostly happen to be named Dan. You're going to laugh. You're going to think. You're going to draw on some old experiences. You're going to, uh, draw some inspiration from these guests for week one. Now, this is something that just happened in the past 24 hours. We had a schedule change. My first guest, I'm going to have to move to week two.
Won't get into the details, but that left an opening with about a 24 hour window to fill it. And I, I was in a little bit of a predicament, but I thought, okay, option A is to move the start back one week. Don't want to do it. Do not want to do it. We're going to be consistent. Option B would be to scramble and try to find any Dan, any old Dan at the last second. I walk into a store and see a guy with a name tag that says Dan, Hey, you look like you'd be a good, a good guest for Dan time.
Come on, let's do it here. Let's do it on the spot. You got 15 minutes. So that was not an option. So in order to keep this thing going in the direction that I had planned on, I had one call to make one phone call. You've been there. You know who it is. You know who you need when it's, when it's go time and something has fallen through. Who's that person in your life?
You know who it is for me, for this show, for right now, that person was Jim Powell, Jim Powell, ladies and gentlemen, not a household name, unless you grew up around us, uh, 20 years ago, 15, 16 years ago, but a massive presence, a giant of a man, a heart of gold, the guy that I asked to marry me and my wife almost five years ago, Jim Powell. This is a guy that I spent several years working in the service industry alongside admittedly spent a few late nights with Jim Powell.
Jim and I have been through a lot together and in the past 10 years, because, um, we were best friends in Birmingham and for the past 10 years, we have not physically been around each other. And with the advent of smartphones, I'm sure you can relate. You just don't, you don't talk on the phone a lot, even with a very close friend. We're texting most of the time with a lot of people.
So Jim and I, you know, back in 2005 and six and seven and certainly oh two or three, a lot of phone calls, a lot of, Hey, what are you doing? What's going on? What are you doing tonight? What's going on this weekend? Watching a game and picking up the phone and calling and talking about it. So to have this conversation with Jim was really special because we just don't get to do it very often anymore. So luckily I asked him to step in and of course he said yes, of course he said yes.
What I was wanting to do was to more or less save Jim Powell for a, for like a bonus episode. I mean, this is in my opinion, such an A-lister that I wanted to keep him in the back pocket and probably, you know, pull him out in a year or two. That's how important, that's how highly I think of this guy. So obviously with someone that you're very close with and you go back a couple of decades or even five or 10 years, there's a lot of inside jokes, a lot of anecdotes that only you two remember.
I kept that in mind and I realized, Hey, this is a broad audience. We're not going to walk down every one of those paths because we're just going to lose the average listener. So you'll see here, I hope that we spared you some of that stuff and a couple of times it just comes out because it naturally does with the two of us, but you're going to enjoy this episode. So I tried to avoid it. I wanted it.
I wanted to stack the deck with Dan's and instead we're going to start out with a, it's still a three letter name, Jim. I call him Jimmy sometimes, but this is Jim and he knows about Dan time. He knows about Dan time. I let him off the hook. I let him off the hook or maybe I let myself off the hook. You'll see in this conversation, I did not ask him, what does Dan time mean to you? He knows exactly what it means. Trust me. He knows exactly what Dan time means or what it once meant.
So we didn't get it. We didn't cover it. So we'll see how much of a cliffhanger we can make this thing. We're both huge Cubs fans. We did not talk about the Chicago Cubs really should have. They are four games over 500 at this point in August and just having a pretty exciting second half and we didn't touch on that, but that's okay. Another thing you'll notice and I want to, I want to quote my dad here.
My dad's got a lot of great lines and you know, when you're 10 years old, you think that he came up with all of them. You don't realize it. Some things are just kind of in the vernacular, but it, maybe he didn't come up with this one either, but I like to think that they're mostly original. Done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect. You'll notice that Jim's audio quality is much stronger than mine. And there's a reason for that.
There's a switch that I didn't flip and, uh, and it caused some degradation in the quality of my microphone. I listened to it. It bothered me a little bit, but we're going to move forward. The conversation is great. That's what, that's what we're here for. So you're going to love this episode. I'm not going to continue talking here. If you like Dan time, if you want to reach out to the show to me, you can reach me at Dan time pod at gmail.com.
I'm on all the socials at Dan time pod on X there's the Facebook page. There's Instagram Dan time pod. Enjoy this conversation with me and Jim Powell. You're going to love it. Thanks for listening to Dan time. Jim, how are you doing, man? Man, Dan, I am fantastic. I am thrilled, thrilled, uh, to be the first guest on a podcast dedicated to Dan speaking with other Dan's. Um, the irony is not lost on me. I love it. Uh, you know, my wife's maiden name was Daniel.
So, and I think that qualifies me and my first name is three letters, uh, just like Dan. So I think that's good enough for me and should be good enough for your listeners. And if they have a problem with it, you know, they have your Twitter. Well, listen, you're, you're checking enough boxes there. I would be lying if I said that I'm not slightly disappointed that we didn't save you for a bonus episode or, you know, just this was 24 hours ago.
Jim Powell was not going to be the kickoff guest on Dan time. I mean, why would you be this is, I did not bill it to be somebody other than a Dan. I I've been basically been lying to my listeners. I mean, you know, those, those two people out there are been like for at least two people for the past week. I mean, I've been promoting, I've been, I've been tweeting or seating or whatever they call it.
Are you going to have to go into hiding when this drops for fear of repercussions that your listeners will revolt because you're not having a Dan on the start Dan time. We're not barely making a lift off here. I mean, this thing is D O H M. No, it's not. This is fantastic. credibility has been lost. No, this is great. You're Dan. And so this is time with Dan Dan time. You know, if people get dual Dan's, that's just a bonus.
Well, listen, so Jim and I, Jim and I, Quim and I, we go back, we go back over 20 years. So we graduated high school together. We became really close pals in the early two thousands. And back then we always talked on the phone. I probably called Jim Powell daily, usually after hours, usually, Hey, what are you doing tonight?
And so for those of you listening, who may be 27 years old or even 34 years old, and you really don't have any experience with this, you kind of had to do it out of necessity. And some ways I miss it other ways, you know, you know, when you pick up the phone to call your buddy to see what was going on that weekend or that night, you're not staring forlornly into a blue screen, posting out a message that you know, it's pretty straightforward or you're saying, Hey, man, what's going on?
But you know, you just get animated. And I'm rambling here, Jim, but that's what that's what we used to do. And we don't really, you and I don't talk anymore. Like we used to. This is a real treat for me, even though, like I said, I couldn't deliver a Dan out the gate, ladies and gentlemen, this is by far the next best thing. Absolutely. The next best thing to another Dan Dan quail or, you know, Dan Deardorff, as you've said in the past.
And of course, the Mount Rushmore has to the head at the top is your boy, Dan Marino. So I'm happy just to be here, you know, and love speaking to you about, you know, things that are going on in the Dan inverse, as it were. So you know, I'm happy to talk to you as long as you'll have me. And again, I'm just, you know, honored to, to be your first guests. And you know, I'm sorry to everybody who comes after me because they're going to have a whole lot to live up to. You know, big shoes to fill.
Well, and you would think that starting a show called Dan time that I would just have Dan's from near and far just beating down my door, trying to get on, trying to get on the show. And maybe I had a little bit of that expectation. Not that they've come out of the Woodworth. What did I say? Woolworth, Woolworth, the, the old drugstore for the five and dime. They haven't come out of the Woolworth episode.
Another episode idea, but yeah, I thought, okay, well I just kind of reach up and grab a Dan and we'll, we'll have an episode. Let me tell you, if you're thinking about starting something like this and your name is Josh or your name is Susan or whatever, they're just not, people like to talk. People like to be heard. People aren't, aren't just crazy about being recorded though. Probably a little hog.
I'm proud of you for just approaching, you know, every Dan on the street you come across and asking them to be on a podcast with you. And trust you know me, I'll do it. The thought crossed my mind this week because I had a late cancellation, which is no big deal. This guy is going to, you're going to love our first Dan out the gate.
But I thought, okay, if I go to the store, if I could a dollar general or something and I see a name tag and that name tag says Dan, I have pitched this guy about being on the show. Oh sure. The light would shine down. Angels would say it would be Kismet. You better believe it, but no, it's, this is, this is going to be fun. And Jim, what better, what better way to start off than to have you here?
You married my wife and I, we, we worked some of our best years, our formative years, our wasted youth time period. We worked together in an awesome pizza restaurant, Mellow Mushroom, which regionally some of you might be familiar with. Jim, let's, let's kind of jump off right there and I've got a lot of things I want to hit on, but Mellow Mushroom. Oh my goodness. We ate there, oh man, maybe two weeks ago.
You know, they opened a second location on down on highway 280 down yonder and we just happened to go in there. We, we love it. My daughter is just enraptured with their pretzels with beer cheese, which is not the beer cheese we didn't have when we worked there. But their beer cheese dipping sauce is outstanding. It's literally one of the, you know, four food groups from my daughter along with real pizza, chicken nuggets, and Texas toast.
Does she ever take a carrot or a celery stick and scoop ranch and basically use that, use that as a vehicle to get ranch? That would, you would, if good parents would probably have worked that in with their kids, we were not able to do that. She may use a, you know, a piece of a pizza crust and dip it in ranch, but she is sure she never would. She put a carrot or a piece of celery in ranch and, and eat it. She is not a vegetable eater.
Unfortunately we're, we failed in that, in that category, but, but yeah, she'll, she'll eat some fruits, but yeah, Mellow Mushroom is one of our, let's stay on target here with Mellow Mushroom. We're, we're, we're not going to sit here very long, but Mellow Mushroom pizza bakers. I mean, I didn't know I'd be plugging them, but what, tell me about, tell me your thoughts when you think about 2002, I know, I think you started in 01 there and I came out, came on in 02, but what do you remember?
What's, you know, what's your takeaway from that time period? Well, I mean, I loved it, you know, obviously super fond of it and have fond memories because I met my wife later. It's also, you know, we had very, yeah, with New Girl, we had very little turnover. I felt like even for that time and nowadays you go down to Southside or just about anywhere in the country and there's these, you know, boutique pizza places. Back in 2002 when Mellow Mushroom came in, that was, it was it.
It was the spot, you know, you didn't have Slice or any of these other hundreds of, like I said, boutique pizza places you had at that time, you had all the chains, Papa John's, Caesar's, you know, Pizza Hut, Domino's. And then when Mellow Mushroom came, it was like, wow, you can go eat pizza, have beer, different crazy toppings, you know, artichokes, you know, I mean, spinach. It was just, it was different. So the restaurant was really cool. The vibe was cool.
Southside was still a really happening place. When Jim said Southside, it's the Southside of Birmingham, Alabama. It's I haven't been down there in quite some time, but 20 years ago it was a hotspot. It was a fun place to be. We were right across the street from a dance club that, boy, that was fun, Jim. Remember when we closed down the restaurant and just people watched? Yeah, just people watch out on the porch with the lights off was just a highlight of every day.
And yeah, it was just a great place to work. I, we, Kelly and I went through my wife and thought about it one day, like the amount of couples and kids that came from people that worked there. I think there's like 10 kids from people that met at Mellow Mushroom back in that day. I think it was unique in that way and it was a real family atmosphere and still talk to some of those people regularly. You know, everybody show up. There you go. The owner was great. Yeah. Big fan of his.
He was the father of the two guys who originally opened that he was a real hands on and just a great guy, you know, as were the two original owners. But yeah, I loved it down there, man. Got to meet you good friends for life. So it was just a fun time. Yeah. One thing I want to, I'll keep coming back to this and other future episodes of Dan Time, but is the topic of service and the interest in service.
And Jim, you're like me, you've always been in some kind of role where service is at the forefront and it calls on your skills to relate to people, empathize with people, understand people's needs and care about what you're doing. Even back then when we were college students and like you said, we're kind of got one eye peeled and in this direction of, you know, going out and doing these things and hanging out with friends.
But can you remember even back then where it was important to you when you showed up at work to, Hey, I'm going to do a good job tonight. And how do you relate that back then and where your head was versus today? Like with the staff of restaurants currently when I go in and have service? Or just like how you feel about how you go about your business. You know, we won't really talk a lot about your day to day life in that regard. Do you still have this, do you still carry that mindset of service?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you're dealing with the public or dealing with other people in your industry or in business, you want to be as professional as possible and as approachable as possible. And you know, just want to get out there and shake hands and or shake hands and kiss babies as much as possible and service and the service industry has changed a lot in the past 20 years, just from us going out to restaurants.
You know, now there's still great servers, but there's also a lot of people who, I don't know, don't seem to care. Maybe sometimes. Yeah, yeah. But that could have been the same way back then, you know, we weren't the ones going to restaurants. We were the ones working in restaurants. So back then there could have been people who said, you know, 20 years, 1980s, they weren't like that, you know, so I don't know everything.
It's always there's always going to be older folks that say things were better back in their day. And there's always going to be younger folks who say that they're just crotchety and need to get over it. But yeah, I think, you know, don't know how to segue that into something else. But I think that service today is a little different than it was. Sure. Yeah, I do see it. And when I when I see I don't know if you're this way.
And maybe this is me becoming like the dad at the restaurant that's saying, what's your name young lady? You know, but when you notice someone that's going the extra mile, maybe you like I mean, there's an ice cream store here locally that I'll take the kids to. And there's this really nice teenage guy that's like, he started telling me about what he wants to do after high school.
You know, I take notice of some of those people that are working in service roles and seem like they care about what they're doing. Oh, yeah, they yeah, they stand out. So that's that's one thing I'll touch on with with with each guest as we go along. Another thing with you, Jim, and we'll get back to some specifics here in a minute, but a consistently positive outlook, no matter what's going on. I think you as my friend over the years, you've been through a lot.
You've been through a lot of things that I probably haven't even heard about. But you always seem to put a good face even on a bad situation, as they say. Is there anything that you do in particular that keeps driving that positive attitude or that interest in just succeeding? Who? That's a good question, Danimal. I don't. It's always easier to say just look on the bright side, you know, than to do it sometimes.
But you know, I was raised by a lady, my mom, who's wonderful, you know, always did everything with a smile. I only remember her one time ever getting so mad that she swore. And it was when I was a little jerk and didn't want to go to church like four weeks in a row and she finally threw her hands up and was like, then fine, you don't have to go. You know, so but I imagine it's just learned behavior.
You know, being a dad and raising kids, man, kids and eventually young adults and adults are a big reflection of what they learned as children and what they saw as children. And so, you know, I would attribute I appreciate you saying that. And I would attribute, you know, my attitude to my parents and how I was raised and the people I was raised around and learned a long time ago that, you know, if you can't laugh at yourself, you're going to be miserable.
You know, yeah, well, I mean, you got to be you got to be you got to be happy. I do not think that way about myself personally. I sometimes feel like I'm just a storm cloud. But but maybe that's inward and I'm a little too. One thing I always thought was just I mean, it's hilarious on one end and very unique on another. A lot of people don't know this because the world just doesn't know about Jim Powell. That's what I'm trying to improve upon here.
Yes, Jim. Over the years, Jim, I don't know if you still do this. I started to notice that you had a different expression in almost every picture that you'd be captured in, whether it was with me or another group of friends. I don't know if that was like deliberate or your thing, but I just thought that was so cool and kind of speaks to here's a guy who does not take himself too seriously. It is hard in this world, I think, now to be more relaxed. Don't take yourself so seriously.
Don't worry about what people are thinking about you. It's probably particularly hard on teenagers. And when my kids get older and start going through middle school to just, oh, don't worry about what they say. I think that was a lot easier when we were growing up. And when we were growing up, it wasn't that easy. But it's hard. I think it's really hard now. But you really have just embodied that quality and is one of the reasons why you're one of my closest friends.
I'm getting real close to the edge here, Jim. So we're not. Oh, my goodness. I mean, I'm just sitting here blushing and wiping away. There's cutting onions in here. I'm so appreciative. Thank you for bringing me on. There's been a real boost to my confidence. No, thank you. This is what downtime is going to be every week. You can have me as a guest twice a week. I'm fine with that. But yeah, that's you're too kind. And I'd say the same about you, man.
Friends are very important to me because I'm not an only child, but my brother and sister were a good bit older than me. So much older that I really don't remember them living in the same house. They were 14 and 12 years older than me. And I had cousins, but they lived far away. They weren't in the same city. And so once I started making friends when we moved back to Birmingham in second grade, friends from then on were just really important to me because they were like family.
So it's always been important to me that my friends are happy and that I surround myself with mostly positive people. Especially as you move along in life, I think it's as important as ever. And there's almost a point where you have to make that split with maybe a pack of friends or a group that you enjoy being around where you have to say, all right, who's going places and who's not. Yeah. We're just going different directions.
Or really in the age that we live in with FaceTime and group texts, you can get out of your hometown. I mean, I know not everybody, I mean, I did, but you don't have to. But if some people are considering it and you have the means, it's like if you're still single and you're just running around with the same three or four people and let's just say they're not doing anything productive and there you go and hang out with them and they don't have anything uplifting to really talk about.
This is me speaking to the listeners, to both of you guys. Get out of that and think about, make a plan about how you're going to get out of it. Don't just say, oh, it'd be really nice to move to Nashville. Oh, you know, maybe I'll do that next year or maybe I'll think about that. Make a plan and small steps, but you really don't even have to move. You don't have to move to another state or move from a physical address.
Sometimes it's just changing the job and figuring out what are the little steps that I can take that I could just start making this happen. But I'll talk about that more in future episodes. Yeah, Jim, I've always just found you to be someone and you're probably a little too hard on yourself in that regard, but people are drawn to.
You seem to have an easy ability to just talk to the guy on the street, which is something that I really seek out in friends is if we're out somewhere and all of a sudden I turn around and say, where's Jim? Where'd he go? And you're across the bar and you're just standing there talking to someone that I don't recognize and it's been going on for 12 minutes. That's a good quality.
Well, there's an interesting story and you may have a few of them, but haven't there been some public figures that you've seen out in public and said, hey, man, not so much can I get your autograph, but any story you want to talk about?
Yeah, I talked about it on the podcast I have or used to our on hiatus podcast, give me 10, but we were in me and a couple of our friends went to Nashville to watch a Titans game and so after the game we had to stop at White Castle because we don't have those here in Alabama for our, for the day and time international listeners and White Castle is just a miniature slider burger place. And they basically have two tables. It's all order and then stand there and wait.
And my goodness, the wait is, it feels like 30 minutes when you've had four beers at the Titans game. And so we're standing there and after we order, I look over my shoulder and it's James Carville, who I'm sure you know, I know, you know, JT on our podcast episode had no clue, but he's a political pundit. He used to work for Clinton, right? I think anybody gets younger than 42.
Probably it's not a household now, but no, but he's a, I mean, he's wasn't his wife a conservative and he was pretty liberal. It was an op care. Um, they didn't, they have a debate show or something or, I mean, you'd know the guy though. He's super, I think he's from Louisiana. He's from Louisiana. He was decked out in LSU gear cause LSU had played Vanderbilt before. If your dad had CNN on in your house during the Clinton administration, you've heard this guy, which might not be.
Yeah. Yes. Oh yeah. And so I was like, James Carville. And he was like, yes, how are you? And I was like, good. He's he's he's he's waiting for his burgers. He cannot get away. Yeah. Yeah. He can't, there's, there's a tiny restaurant, you know, he can't like get his drink. So I'm just, and like I said, I'd had a couple of drinks at the Titans game and was even more, um, open to social interaction. So I was just chatting him up and for the first couple of minutes it was okay.
But then it was, when it was done, he, you know, he basically did the whole full three quarter body turn away from me, um, to just look at the wall. So I kind of got the, I got the hint and just stopped talking. But, but yeah, I loved seeing him and yeah, seeing random folks out, uh, famous people's always always wonder like some people that talk for a living, uh, they're analysts, they're on TV a lot or they're, um, on radio. I don't know.
Maybe there's some of them that, that like to just talk nonstop and they'll engage everyone on the street. And there's probably others who are like, let me just get my to go order here from Applebee's and get just get out of here. Yeah. Leave me alone. Well, he, I mean, again, he was nice. Um, but heck, I don't like talking to just, I, you say that I like talking to random people.
It depends on if they have something interesting to say, you know, so he, he probably gets tired of just every rando coming up. You know, I don't know if you watch and well, actually I know you do cause I sent you a, uh, the first season, um, DVD, but impractical jokers just in the past year or so when that shows the popularity has exploded. I get told once a week that I look like the fat guy Sal from that show. And I am just so over being told that I look like him.
It's the first time in my life I've ever been, um, you know, had a celebrity doppelganger. And so I was always wondered, cause I would tell people they look like somebody and it would frustrate them. You know, like our friend Dave would get so tired of people telling me look like Russell Crowe and this was when Russell Crowe was a good looking dude, you know, 20 years ago, I was like, man, better Russell Crowe than John Lovitz or something, you know, it's a great example.
It's hard to, uh, to think of celebrities, celebrities where across the board, if you were to say to your friend, Hey, you look just like Sandra Bullock, you know, it's like probably five or 10% of them where it's just an automatic compliment. And then there's like the vast majority youth would think that that would be cool for that person. But yeah, but people do not like it. You could say, man, you look like Brad Pitt. They'll shut up.
I've been told that, you know, it's like better than Sal from impractical. Jokers, the fat guy with the, you know, now I recognize that, uh, 10, 12 years ago when I'm like, I kind of looks like Jim, but I thought it was like, I was like, man, that was kind of cool, but it's not, you know, it's not me. So I'm not comparing myself. Um, I haven't gotten too many of those celebrity comparisons. Who have you gotten? You've gotten some long, long time ago.
I think somebody, when I was working at TGI Fridays, uh, mentioned you and McGregor. I don't know if he's what that guy does. Yeah. I've got that once. Yeah, I could see that. That's a good one. Yeah. He's, um, Obi-Wan Kenobi. That's a good one, Dan. Rick Smith's maybe from the, uh, the flying Dutchman. No, you didn't. You guys always, uh, debt left shrimp. Man, a lot of those guys, uh, really good memories there. Jim, we got to touch on the gimme 10 podcast.
And this is something that I've, uh, if you guys are following me on X, um, I just, uh, posted about gimme 10. This is worth checking out. This is, I don't think is out to a broad audience either, but if you enjoy listening to two guys just sit around and talk about a bag of peanuts, I mean, you don't, you're not expecting that it's going to be funny, but give one of these episodes a shot.
I mean, just one, the great thing here, and you'll see if you go, um, to their Spotify link, the last episode says, this is the end. Now, in most cases, that's pretty declarative. That's it's over, but, uh, there's, and we may clear up some rumor here that, uh, there's, that we may have a fall to 2023 return of gimme 10. Uh, before I get confirmation on that, let me just kind of pop off a few of these episode titles Christmas gifts, movie theaters, uh, Halloween candy in two parts.
There's a part one and part two Halloween candy episode. Oberkei there is, uh, the eighties. Great episode. Uh, they might be giants. Some of these cultural musical, um, footnotes in history, they're just peppered in here. One of my favorites was the birthdays episode. I think that's one of the later ones. Of course I recommended way back drywall repair and they actually jumped on it and did an episode on drywall repair.
We did Dan said he could listen to us talk about anything, even drywall repair. So our, our, the followup episode was about drywall repair and it was exhilarating. If you could, uh, confirm or deny the rumor that you guys are coming back sometime this fall, that would be awesome. And, and regardless, just give us a little rundown of what gimme 10 is all about. First things first, the, you know, the reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated. I think that's the quote.
But yes, we are coming back, um, in the fall, uh, JT poker face, my podcast partner and the creator gimme 10 is, uh, he moved away, uh, about three years ago and we tried to do, um, remote episodes. And when he would come back to Birmingham, we would record episodes, but it just wasn't the same and, uh, had lost a little bit of its luster there. So we called it, we decided to hang it up and, um, but lo and behold, he has decided to move back to Birmingham. Thank goodness.
So we are going to start back, um, date TBD, but hopefully here soon. So everybody, if you're listening to this, please go listen, like, and subscribe to the gimme 10 podcast. The audio is nothing compared to what day and time has got set up here. Um, but we're going to work on getting that cleaned up, but the, the, uh, the format and the subject matters are spectacular. If you ask me and it started because it's called gimme 10 was, uh, we did a hard stop at 10 minutes every episode.
So no matter what we talked about, we were in and out in 10 minutes. Um, JT's idea, it was JT's idea. You guys really kept to it also. I mean, there's very little variation, especially towards the end. I think you kind of just let it fly, but most episodes you're clocking out at 10,01, nine 59 10 on the dot. And so folks, people throw stuff at you. You get recommendations, people text you, oh, you got to watch this show. You need to watch this on Netflix. You need to listen to this podcast.
You got 10 minutes to just take a shot on something. And if, uh, on this, on, uh, gimme 10 and, um, listen, you know, listen to, listen to 12 or 13 episodes, you know, and make your mind up after that, but, uh, you know, give it an hour and, you know, uh, 102 hours would be at 12 episodes. So you know, that's, you could get to Auburn and back and listen to, you know, 12, 10 minute episodes. And then if you don't like it, maybe listen to 10 more episodes.
But then after that, if it's still not got you hooked, you can unsubscribers or stop. But yeah, just give us a fair shake. So you know, 40 episodes. Well, Jim, this has been an excellent, uh, reconnect with you. I mean, it's, I say that like, we're not going to talk again for the next two years, but I got, I got a few little rapid fire questions that I'm probably going to shoot out at most guests here. What do you, if you're, are you listening to a band right now?
Is there anything that's really set in your world on fire that you're prepared to say, Hey, you guys need to check out this song or this group. Oh, uh, let me pass and come back to that. Okay. What are you watching when it's eight o'clock, eight 30 at night and there's not a game on, what are you watching? Uh, you know, mostly stuff from my DVR. And right now I'm watching what we do in the shadows.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's a phenomenal, it's one of the funniest TV shows I've ever seen. It's like a mockumentary about Dracula's who live in, I'm not Dracula, vampires who live in Staten Island, New York, a shot mockumentary style. So you know, like the office or this is spinal tap. It's hilarious. So I've been watching that. Um, I go down YouTube rabbit holes a lot too at night. Uh, you know, love, uh, rasslin stories or, um, yeah, anything like that.
There's all kinds of different YouTube stuff I get into. Jim, if you had to just stand outside in the middle of your yard and it's either one of these two options. All right. So you, you're just, let's just say you're in your work clothes. Do you want to stand outside where it's heat index 108 degrees for 30 minutes or stand out there when it's a wind chill of, let's just say 14 degrees, which one are you going for? 14 degrees. I think I'm part Viking. Yeah. I do not want to stand in the sun.
I do not like the sun. You got a button down shirt on when it's blazing hot. You got that same button down on when it's frigid cold, no jacket. You're still out there. Yeah, I can just jump. Yeah. I can jump on. I kind of jumped on one foot back and forth, get the blood flowing. Yes. I would much rather do that than just stand and, um, have sweat form in places that we can't talk about on a, on a PG podcast.
That is something from 1997 or 1998 that you think was just awesome for being that age at that time that you just feel like kids are missing out on right now. So at that time, you know, we graduated that year. What was cool about the late nineties? We'll just say the late nineties that just ain't so cool right now or people don't have the same access. Uh, I think we've already kind of touched on it, but I think the technology and especially, you know, communication technology.
So cell phones, they're great. Listen, I couldn't live without my phone, but, um, if I could go back to 1997 and just have a phone that gave me directions to places, I think I would be a lot. I would, I would love that. If kids these days only used headphones that could call people or, you know, if we could pick one of the parts of current technology to take back, it would be, you know, uh, ways or instant directions. Just the fact that you can get in touch with anybody anytime, anywhere.
It's it's just kind of a bummer, you know? So when you go on vacation, are you really, do you really feel like you're on vacation when you still have the work email icon? Absolutely. Jim, last question. Did you ever have to speak to a girl's dad on the phone because she had to call her house number to talk to her and ask her either out to a date where she's already your girlfriend and this is just the primary way they can connect with her after hours. Uh, yes.
That is never happening ever again for any teenager. He's that he's in the clear. No, no, no. Well, I mean, if he goes to her house to pick her up, you know, if, uh, if somebody is going to come over to take ever out, he's going to have to come in and sit and talk to me for a couple of minutes before they leave. So I remember several girls dads being pretty intimidating. I mean, they weren't doing the whole pull out of shotgun and shine it up while we talk, but it was always nerve wracking.
But yeah, you don't have to worry about that nowadays with the phone. I remember, I think it was the homecoming dance. This may have been 10th grade, my date to the dance, her dad picked me up at my house. So he's already got my date in the car. So he drops us off at the dance. When he picks us up, he drives all the way to their house, drops her off. And then it was like an hour drive home and it was long enough. Did he get you in the front seat or do you make you stay in the back?
And he wasn't too hard on me, but it was just that again, this is 1994. So you don't have any phone to fiddle with. You don't have anything to just, oh, let me just burn away the time here in this uncomfortable situation. You're just riding with this girl's old man for what seems like an eternity. Did he talk or was he nice? Not a big talker, nice guy.
I wouldn't even say was dead in conversations because I was too frozen to even talk freely or loose with him, but that probably still goes on a little bit. I've got my kids and it's kind of fun thinking about how you're going to treat the girlfriends and the boyfriends and I'll be easy on them, but have some fun at the same time. Yeah. I can see you pulling a lot of legs and messing with guys and gals for sure. Well, Jim, we could go on and on. We're going to have to do a part two.
Oh, hey, before you sign me off, I got to circle back to your music question and it's recently watched the Ken Burns country music documentary from PBS. If people haven't seen that, they need to search it out. I've been on a real big golden age of country music kick, so I'm listening to a lot of older, I guess silver age is what it would be. Merle and Waylon and George Jones and all those folks. That's what I've been listening to.
Now you can sign off and tell me how great I am again and talk about it. Jim, since you mentioned that and I'm going to have to put you to the test here. You want to sing us out with some George Jones? Maybe she thinks I still care or just because I asked a friend about her perfection. Oh gosh, that's terrible. You got to cut that. All right, Jim, Jim Hammer, Jimmy, however many nicknames that you've had over the years. This has been awesome.
This has been more than I expected and hopefully you guys at home or in the car have enjoyed the episode as well. The first episode of Dan Time in the books. Remember you can look us up on X it's at Dan Time pod. We're also on Facebook or on Instagram. Jim, I don't know that we talked a lot back in the day, but did we ever have a 40 minute conversation on the phone? Man, maybe on one of our way or one of us being on the way to the beach or something. But yeah, I don't think so.
This has been great. Thank you so much for having me Dan. It's been awesome. And I'm just honored to be the first guest on a podcast dedicated to Dan speaking with people named Dan. Jim, thanks for being on. And remember, wait until it is 7 48 at night to go out and cut your grass. Do not give yourself a heat stroke. You guys have a great week and we'll be back next week on Dan Time.