Ep. 62 - Jim Fairbanks

I leave in I you wanna way back home? Either way we want to be there.

Doesn't matter how much baggage you claim, and give us time and a termino and gage. We want to send you off inside. You wanna welcome you back home? Tell us all about it. We scared her? Was it fine? Now? Porn? Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride? Do your need ride.

With Karen and Chris welcome to Do you need a ride? This is Chris Fairbanks, Karen Kilgarriff. Do not panic. Karen is healthy. She's just in another city. I am in Missoula, Montana.

I'd like to meet this girl. I know you would. I think she's marvelous.

She's the best. That's my father. His name is fair Chris Fairbanks Senor. Early on someone named him James. It would have been more convenient to name you Chris Fairbanks Senior. But someone would have to have the foresight.

Longest name of the baby book, Christopher. Did you know that? Well?

That makes sense because it gets cut off a lot of teachers thought my name was Christoph just t O p h E. And and then you know inevitably I would have to, you realize, do an accent all year and pretend to be from another land.

Multi syllable names run the risk of being shortened, and that's something you think about when you name a kid. Yeah, and I didn't want you to be Chris. I wanted you to be Christopher. Right.

Well, I'm sorry, but I go by Chris now my driver's license and my credit card, said Christopher. But Chris is just easier, and fine. I didn't mean to slight you.

Fine.

I sometimes if I want someone to really take me seriously, I go, well, you know that. When I moved to Los Angeles, a guy named a guy named Christopher Fairbanks came to one of my shows at MBAR and he said, hey, we have a problem. I think we have. We have the same name. I do stand up and act and you do stand up and act. And and I said, well you you go by Christopher. I pretty much go by Chris. Problem solved. Plus we look a lot different, so.

Older guy, yeah, yeah, we keep in touch.

Is it he likes?

Is he a fair Bank? He's a fair Banks. Christopher fair Bank is an English actor that is in a number of as.

He's in uh uh.

He was in the Guardians of the Galaxy. He was in I think he's in a lot of stuff English. Nobody's going to give a rats ask about this. But we were fair Bank when I was a little kid. Really, yeah, and the whole family was fair Bank. And for some reason we leave Minnesota and hey, you know we're on the highway, and how would you like to have a different last nag? Really it was during your life that So my birth certificate, I think, says fair Bank.

That's amazing to me. Yes, that sounds there's fair Banks everywhere I know by being fair Bank, does that make us more English?

Yeah? If there's more than one of you, your fair Banks?

And what are And you know, I don't care where my ancestors first made love and babies. But I am scotch Irish. What is that? Is it scotch Irish?

Right? Scott's Irish? My understanding is is Irish people who came before the Potato familine to the United States wanted to distinguish themselves from the Irish that came over after the Potato famine or during the potato famine in Ireland right around eighteen forty and fifty okay, And so they call themselves scotch Irish, which is.

We are not we are not Irish and we are not Scottish exactly.

That's what I said. What do you mean we're scotch Irish? Do two different places?

Yeah? During this growing up, you were always so tan and with a dark curly head of hair and a mustache. I was convinced you were Mexican my whole life, or it's some I thought you were Latino in.

Some way, and I still I still made me think that, but I, uh, yeah, we're English people, English people and the dark skin Swiss, my other god of the family, Swiss God. We got we got around just a we're about to leave. You were just picked up by me.

I was just picked up by my father. I'm in Missoula. I'm heading back to Los Angeles. Karen was going to pick me up. We were going to record a podcast when I got home. And uh, Allegiant Airlines, which I'm a fan of, I mean their direct flight. It's it's oftentimes half the price of other airlines. But the last three times I've flown with Allegiance they have been they just say, hey, plane's not coming, and people people always got, Yeah, our plane may or may not be coming.

How soon can you get here?

Colon Allegiant They yeah, they never have an excuse.

And I don't make them have an excuse.

Everyone else in line says, that's ridiculous. It's not that ridiculous. It's an airplane. Things happen, it didn't show up. I just said, oh, okay, so I'm flying out at midnight now, and so my dad and I are driving. Where are we near? Where we french Town? Is this kind of not quiet?

We're going out Mullin road. Mullen was a surveyor, a captain in the US Army, and he surveyed all of this to Seattle, that this road, this road is the main road from Chicago to Seattle. Really making that shit out?

We are not Yeah, no, I made up a bunch of stuff last episode.

And we just passed what used to be Missoula, that convenience stores where the original Hellgate was. Missoula used to be called Hellgate, but it was tough to get mail order brides to come to Hallgate. Imagine that really no, right here, right up here, Okay, that's where that was the original site of Hellgate or Missoula.

Like the city Hall may as well have been there exactly, and mail order brides came here because the workingman, the minor, the gold panter didn't have time to go out and date.

Imagine how desperate you'd have to be.

Then people make jokes about farmers only dot com, which is a dating site for only farmers.

Have you heard of that?

Oh yeah, farmers only dot com. It's where farmers meet. But it's that kind of thing. Where else are you going to meet someone? If you if you're in a settling Missoula health.

Like every other dating service, ninety percent men.

Right, Yeah, so that's that. That site is credited with starting almost sexuality as a result. Just just a numbers game. You have no choice sometimes, And well thanks for picking me up, dad.

Yeah, you had a pretty good week. Really. We went to see or see or you went.

Went to Spokane. We went to have her. I had my fortieth A lot of people don't know I'm forty because I use a lot of lotion, but I am forty years old. All of my friends collectively turned forty around this time or around this year. So we went up in the woods and have her and stayed in cabins, and they were haunted. I guarantee you they were. I can tell when there's a presence. I don't know what to do with that. But lights were turning off and on,

But yeah, it could have been just a bad electrician.

Yeah, but it seemed like they would.

Turn on luminum romex. Maybe maybe it was that.

You know, and I don't want to like make you feel bad, but the wiring you did in the house on Van Buren. I went there at a party in college and there was a basement fire right by one of the light fixtures. I don't know if I told you this.

You did tell me, Yeah, and you rubbed that in once before. Okay, And you know, electricity pretty simple. It's wires and romex and you I'm not I'm not disputing the fact that a fixture I put up may have gone so.

It burst into flames. Oh you think it was the fixture.

Okay, Okay, in a pair of wires, I don't know what if they what you're suggesting, you put a nail through one of them. Well, sometimes he's a black electrical Ten years later, it started on fire. Maybe the electrical tape of keeping I have time, I have feelings. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm just saying there was a fire and thank god we had moved out years prior. It was Lisa's room.

That was your sister's room.

That's right, And Lisa, we went. I went to visit my sister, and Spokane you came with. We went. We went to a funeral of her friend. It was very sad.

We were there three days and three events occurred. Yeah, we that were curious but fun.

Yeah, we went. Lisa said, oh, it's this Amazing Race Challenge thing my friend's birthday. Have you seen the show Amazing Race? You and I of course have not. Yeah, we are glued to it. We have the VCR set, the video cassette recorder machine set to record it. I've seen it a couple of times, and I know that there are challenges. You get to a place there you open another envelope. It gives you a clue as to the next place. But they did I think at one

We're a team. Yeh, teams, and we were a team. We had to pick a color.

We don't get along. We're both in the CrossFit and running. Let's work it out on television and see if we should stay married. That's kind of what the show is about. And some people get together and it's usually it's usually one by a by a couple friends like older friends or something. It's it's kind of fun to watch. I'll admit now that I have watched it and I've enjoyed it.

I think I was confused about that as well. Yeah, I have to interrupt you to tell you that many of these roads here have significance in that they're named after founding people. Oh really, And the one we just passed Dayshaw Lane des Champs French, Okay, sure, Deyshaw and build and you'll see a couple others and I'm building to a climactic cavern.

Who's who's this cavern? Person?

I'm not sure about that that's the first person to discover a deep crevasse in a cave that could be They later named that cavern, and Johnny Stalagtite actually named this next road. Oh yeah, this place us as an old hotel omber. This is spooky as is that. I mean this is a waystation or something, okay, and then outswhere and then a left turn.

There is where I shot the first version of Prime Allerges. Oh my gosh, the extension cord was submerged in the river. I scared the whole time, and it was all for nothing because he opened the film exposed it to light, and months of my life were for nothing.

I recall. Yeah, well, on that one, I had to paint four paintings of yours.

Yeah yeah, I lied. You helped me lie you. You had my back, even though you're an honest person. I repurposed some of my dad's paintings. I believe I painted over your signature on one of them, turned it in and.

Oh, I painted four paintings. Did your feet by four feet? Because they had to be that size. I remember that was your that was your end. Grade rested on having four paintings, and because they were so specifically large and odd shaped four by four.

What is this guy doing? There's a guy in the road. Oh, just carrying produce. Yes, the lead singer of Midnight Oil.

You won't know that reference.

I didn't get a good grade in that class, and I wanted to argue for a better grade, but I knew that it was because I was busy shooting a film. Well you know anyway, that's where I shot it.

I had nothing to do with those four marvelous paintings I kicked out for you.

I remember liking them. I don't where are they now?

Uh firewood, I don't know.

Oh well, during wintertime, you gotta keep war.

So we.

One of the events for my sister's friend's birthday was to go on this We had to We ran around. It was kind It was really fun. Went on a gondola, except.

Well every yeah. One of the things was the last thing was on the gondola. You look high, look low, and that's where you will see. And I saw the final destination.

And once I was off that gondola, I was going to run down there and I think we could have won. But then you because.

My granddaughters said, I've never been on the gondola, we.

Had to arrive in a group, and my entire family got on on a car, ten cars and not not remembering that this is a race against time, and so we got dead last. We've got dead last because some fun and family just making fun of us.

People are last? You're dead last? What's wrong with you?

How do you even know the phrase dead last? I'm about to make fun of how thick your glasses are? I almost did. It's easy to hurt a little girl's feelings.

Okay, wow, I'm interrupt you one more time. And what is the name of that row? Holy shit? We're on Fairbanks Lane, so founding people? We why doesn't it say Fairbank? Well, because they changed their name when they came out here too.

They all made the same decision on the drive going west.

We need an extra ass.

Everyone had the same conversations, right. Sometimes I find holes in your stories. I believe most of them, But the time the.

People are dead can So how am I going to.

How am I going to fact check? You told me? Albert Brockli his family invented broccoli, but they spelled it different. They did spell it different, which is.

He takes credit for He has always taken credit for it and people Albert Broccoli and his who's dead now, But he took credit for studding broccoli. He did, he wrote, well, he produced all the Broccoli family owns the Bond franchise.

Yeah yeah, okay, somehow written by Ian Fleming.

But books, yeah okay, but his kids still produce the movies. Though.

You were right in that broccoli is only as old as the early fifties or something.

I don't know, something like that. It's cauliflower crust, crazy hybrid. It's a hybridy vegetable. It's new.

And if you have a palaeo diet, get off that broccoli because it is made in elaboratory. But yeah, I mean I found something on Wikipedia that said it was manufactured by farmers, but it didn't make it. But I could have done more research. I'm sorry. I don't mean to.

I heard that he wow, wow, well, I.

Mean as if okay, And so now we're coming up on stone container.

Is that yeah? This former industrial site that made liner board, which put together We're losing people now, I can tell you that. No, No, it's interesting. Liner Board is the outside paper on a cardboard box, like corrugated. The corrugated stuff comes from Louisiana. Yeah right, but they look at look at all these buildings. Look at all these buildings are gone. These were immense buildings and they had huge recovery boilers or boilers and recovery boilers.

And this is all empty. These are giant buildings.

Corn down industrial buildings.

Was that a stop sign?

Okay? Good?

You made that noise? And then I got nervous. And one time we were on a road trip going through the desert. We were hauling a boat. Grandma was in the front seat, not having fun, I think, maybe drifting off, and then she inadvertently put her elbow on the on the window, the electronic window button, and it started to roll down wind, this hot desert wind blew into the car. Startled, startled her. She screamed, you reacted at a little.

Yeah, I can throw the boat off the trailer. I did. He jerked the wheel, the boat flew off, the trailer, collapsed the fender, Oh god. And did it flatten the tire? Oh god, that's straight out of vacation. Oh yeah, it was that chase material. And then what happened after that, I recall of Sweet America. It wasn't the desert. It was about fifty miles from here, going to see her flathead leg Really, why did I make it the desert? I don't know. I never had a boat near a desert,

He went and got a jack drove.

She was out there with a leverage bar trying, Oh please, don't do that. I don't want to.

Deliver a baby. That was a scene in a movie too. Didn't someone pull over? She's real strong, even though.

She was Oh yes, planes and automobiles, Oh my god.

Yeah.

The guy that was going and that we basically met.

That guy said he was a sweet person.

Oh wow. And I said, I gotta give you some money. Oh no, no, no, I insist, of course I didn't have any. How about it? How about I write your check? And he said, well, okay, you can write me a check. Make it out to Bob somebody. I kind of oh yeah.

Oh I forgot he he he used that money to pay a debt. Where is that guy now? He's the most honest, sweet person ever.

Yeah, and we got a boat back on the trailer. Whose cows are But there's hundreds of cows all those as Eddie Eddie's stalactite. I know whose cows are those? I don't know.

That's just I don't recall there being one hundred cows in a field. But I guess I'm not on Mullen Road that much.

So Mullen Road, right, it's a big deal. It's Captain Mullen did a lot of stuff. There's mull Mullen Idaho. That sure, sure, I didn't know. And this trail turns into mouse. But he's referred to often. You've heard, you know the Mason Dixon line. You've heard, of course. Yes, Well those guys were surveyors.

I'm not pretending to know what it means.

Yeah, and they laid out much of the eastern United States, and that's Whey. Their name is on everything. And the Mullen laid out this road. Wow, I guess.

And I think I have family on my uncle out here, and it's uncle Larry out here.

I don't think so. Uh. Yeah, one time he lived back there on Primrose or something.

He had horses everyone's amazed.

Good eating.

Oh god, if you can get a good, tender, young horse and just throw it on the grill, you are going to have yourself a terrific dinner.

I love horses. If you're ever around a horse, you don't want to appreciate that. Yeah, they're the best. They are like big puppy.

It's funny, though, because have you how many times have you ridden a horse? Being a Montana person, I've I've.

Had some experience, but not a lot enough to make me incredibly sore for several days. Yeah right, oh yeah, doing some you know, cattle driving right right right? That?

Yeah, okay, But prior to that, like as a kid, I didn't. There's horses everywhere. People think it only makes sense that I would have grown up in western Montana riding on horses.

Well, what is kind of expensive? They eat a lot. And I don't think I'm telling any tales out of school when I say we weren't rich growing up? Were we were? We rich? We were rich? I think we were.

We were standards with middle class. Middle class people don't have horses.

I'm starting to feel bad.

Hey, I'm here to push buttons. I'm here to push the envelope, and I'm sorry your feelings get hurt. I appreciate you doing those paintings horses, but you're horrible at wiring basement like fixtures. And you never gave me a pony, a.

Nice little no.

I don't.

I didn't want to pull horses. People. You've got to have twenty acres to feed a horse. Yeah, seal is grass you eat that day and a half. Yeah, so so you have supplemental feeding. If you're on two or three or five acres, you've got supplemental feeding going on.

And what's that mean?

That means you're buying hay? Oh okay, and your pants say that hay for sale? Oh yeah? Eight? If you want some hay for some What kind of horses are those?

Inquire for?

The hobby horses?

Hobby horses the kind that you you on a spring and your little kid gets on it.

You have a hobby horse. If you don't get on it too, oh Russell cattle, right, I didn't.

You've never you know a lot of stuff that's a hobby horse. A hobby horse is a real horse. It's not just because of the toy horse that is on a frame and with springs.

I think, generally speaking, the activity of that's easy, and maintaining a horse that you don't need.

We're racing to be a hobby. I'm going to turn up the sound here. That's a Burlington Northern train, just so people listen to that. I'll get him. My grandpa drove one of those.

Right, Oh no, no way, no way. They wouldn't let.

Him, he'd be too nervous. Yeah, well, maybe he shoveled coal into it. He used to polish them, Maybe.

He washed them. They shovel diesel on those.

Oh okay, well maybe yeah. He my agreement, used to run with handfuls of diesel fuel and pour it into a funnel. That was his job. Here's these skows again. Well I didn't know that about hobby horses. I just kind of now I'm attract It's everything that I took for granted growing up in my Montana. You know, I just wished we would move back to California and I could have long, blonde, straight hair and become a surfer.

That's my whole life, I understand.

And man, now that I lived there by the beach, boy, I miss it here. The grass is always greener, but it is much greener in Montana because California has a drought.

And you find people are much the same no matter where you are.

People are the same, no matter time nor place. That's the fresh Prince will Smith.

Yeah, well, five careers ago, I remember being on the phone with somebody. I worked for the railroad at the time, and I had with Pampa. Yeah. I had to call Denver to iron something out, and the railroad had its own phone line. I thought that was interesting. I don't know if it ran on rails, but or I think it ran on satellites or something. Wow, I call them, and this is something you get all the time. I said, where are you calling from Missoula, Montana? Oh wow, yeah,

You're good. You're good at uh business interaction. I wish that I had that you You can be friendly but intimidating.

There was nothing left to this place except oh we're back. We turned around, we're going back right past stone. Tell you what is left or or what are those conveyor belts? EPA super fun sites? That's what's left. That's what's left when you start tearing down a factory.

And what is a super fun site? It's just when there's poison in the dirt.

This factory was built initially on about two hundred acres in nineteen fifty eight, two hundred acres of the former Fairbanks farm. Okay, there there you have wow. And then there settling ponds out there that have all the crap from shirt the cooking, cooking shirt, wood chips and making paper.

What about the one in Butte that is where mining was happening, golden copper mining. Isn't there a pond that's slowly raising that is so poisiness that birds birds fly above it and just die and rest.

It's horrible. It's called the Berkeley Pit, and it's a mile across and half a mile it's really deep. And and you're right, they did went down and down and down and looking for copper. When digging straight holes in the ground became past a sure they would take just out of donkeys down there and feed them down there, and they never came out.

Oh no, not awful. And then all these all these canaries get credit. Yep, what about the donkey and the coal mine precisely sing about that one.

Let's get out of here.

Oh man, that's awful. And then you have no, it's such they could do it.

They could sinking well type mines and started just digging a big hole and well they kept draining that which would seep in until they shut it down about twenty years ago or so. And now it's filling up.

With and that is the most super super fun Oh nasty. Isn't there a golf course that has super fun sight? But it's for some reason, the the smelter in Anaconda, the sand Jack Nicholas came in and created just a neat golf course. Really, it's jet black. The sand is jet black.

It's a slag, which was a byproduct of smelting copper. So when you so the sand is not sand, it's slag when.

You hit it with your sand wedge and it becomes airborne comes to that flag wedge. You a slag wedge.

People don't it's a special club that you can only buy in Montana. But isn't that just kicking it up and then you're breathing it in? You might as well have been a minor. You know, it doesn't clump like sand if it gets rain. If it rains, it's really pretty good. Oh wow, as I said Nicholas, Jack Nicholas, there's Fairbanks Lane.

Oh, there's Fairbanks Lane again.

Jack Nicholas designed that course and it's beauty and there are just massive chunks of concrete here and there.

You know, I'm we should golf. You've been golfing lot?

I have not been. That's my main job. Yeah. My dad makes so so many courses, so many inspections necessary.

Right, it makes a lucrative retirement living as a golfer. Well maybe sometime soon. What about Fairbanks? The vice president for Roosevelt? Do you know much about him?

I don't know.

He remember I showed you that picture of a five dollars bill that said Bank of Fairbanks as Fairbanks.

And I do know something about uh Teddy Roosevelt. I just don't know anything about this Fairbanks guy that was his vice president and as a present present, a birthday present, I think Roosevelt gave I don't know if he made it, but it's a legal tender five dollars bill that says Bank of Fairbanks and they gave it to him.

But it's Fairbanks, Alaska. So are we somehow related to Fairbanks, Alaska? Can I go there and say, hey, I'm here.

All you hav any street cred there's a consequence of your name? Yeah, I think you will.

Well, let's go there. Who cares? If it's famously the most depressing part of our union?

Why I wouldn't mind going to Alaska? But certain mountains around here, I'm sure they're fancier. Yeah, but I mean we can go to Glacier and you.

Have nighttime here, which allows you to sleep. Isn't Alaska just daytime all day.

Once you get up there? Yep? Especially around Fairbanks?

Wow, I don't, I don't. I don't want to visit Fairbanks.

Talk to a guy that was a teacher up there. I played golf with him once and he was talking about a party. They were having a New Year's Eve party years ago. And he left the New Year's Eve party and was going home and he forget he'd forgotten. He was going a little bit too fast over the railroad track okay, which is elevated and then comes back down. And he went up ben came back down and it was thirty blows zero. I think all four tires exploded. Oh wow, that's the kind of thing that won't happen

Yeah, that's I sit here and wait for help from nobody.

I don't know.

Yeah, it would be ba.

Hey, we did get a funeral too this weekend.

Yeah, we did go to a funeral. I I don't. I'm confronted by the fact that because this sweet girl that passed, very sweet girl, and she's kind of my age, and so I selfishly start thinking about my own mortality. Uh, because she it was a cancer. She she had leg pain, she was tired, leg in back pain, and she is tired I have that. I'm tired. I have leg and back pain. And maybe I'm being ridiculous, but I start, I'm going to a doctor. When I go home, I am my leg hurts and I'm tired all the time.

Right there.

That's that's me. I have vaginal cancer.

Sub e, that's mine. I have that. But if I met that girl, I haven't seen that girl in fifteen years. She was a child. I didn't know that you have a friend of your sisters. And she was a sweet girl, tall, athletic, played basketball, and yeah, they had picked is just a sweet girl. And I'd seen her in a while.

Well, like a lot of And this wasn't a funeral, it was a memorial.

I don't know the difference. But she wasn't there.

It was just a celebration of her, which a lot of people trying to do.

Why they packed the Eagles Hall. The Eagles Hall was classically in an Eagles hall. And I appreciated the open bar. You don't often find that. Am I'm afraid that I paid for four bucks a drink.

There was a bar there, but it was not open. I do think I sort of closed it down. I had some drinks. I'm not comfortable with death. Neither of us are. You and I both aren't religious. I feel confronted by dying, and you know, that's definitely what this event was all about.

But they tried, I thought, and.

There's nothing funny about and no one that's there is gonna listen to this.

Dad. Oh, I think my experience has been in en you. I have a great deal more experience being in my seventies than you have about going to I.

Am lucky to have hardly any friends that have died.

Most of my friends are so Typically people do try to lighten the mood.

Yeah, but the fact that the lights changed and celebrate, which every New Year's.

After change choices, U celebrating the oldest person in the family.

Yes, he was a moderate ninety and he was meandering the celebrate and the disco ball came on.

At one point. It's like, okay, well now this you don't want it to be comedic, but that's kind of what playing celebrate and turning.

On a disco ball at at a funeral. It was a little I don't know, I wasn't I was just resisting.

But I did. Yeah, I don't know that. I wouldn't want anything to right. That was nice. People showed up. I mean, that's it. That's the most important thing is there was a lot of good This is a sweet girl and we're here to say damn.

It and all those people. You know that. One thing that guy did do is recognize everyone and have them raise their hands. Say, oh god, these kids are just too close to the room running and I'm gonna pull over and yell at them. Yeah, just it. There's nothing more sad than if you have a memorial. Of course you'd never know. But if no one showed up, just a lawyer and some guy that hands you have the rose bushes, that means you're old. Yeah, I guess that's the.

Way it should be. There were two hundred people at this sweet girl funeral because she shouldn't be dead.

She shouldn't be Yeah, it's just cancer is the worst man. I think I'm not getting that. Nope, there's a lot of people just wandering around in fields.

Here. What the guy doing.

It's just by himself.

You know what he is. He's outstanding in his field. He's one of the best we know of he's a scarecrow. It's one of the best human scarecrows in town. And I don't think anyone's working that joke into conversation. No, good job. I've been holding on to it since the late sixties. I can use that again. Yeah, I insist that you do that, and I can. I remember coming up with this is what is weird about radio. You have to use the material. You know that you're try

I might.

I might wait six months or a year and throw it out there again. Do you know what I'm saying? Sure? I got a call one day, guy said, hey, you told that story last year. Okay, Okay, I'm sorry, thank you for being a fan. Why are you yelling at me? Exactly?

Yeah?

Sometimes, fuck you very much.

People people call me out, but I for things I say on this podcast. But I appreciate it because it just proves that they're listening.

They do. Yeah sometimes, Oh okay, every once in a.

While I let an idea, I stand by it as if it's fact, and maybe I'm wrong.

Oh, because somebody's got a in their populter.

Yeah, everyone can. No matter what you say, someone can, even just the details of whatever you say, they can say map that's not true. So I'm just going to pretend out now anything from now on, and it won't be hard for me because I I know a little bit, a tiny little bit about a lot of things, and I know more than anyone about skateboarding, but no one wants to.

Hear about it. Did you watch the Republican debate the other night. I didn't. I didn't.

I wanted to. I knew that it would be focused on Trump, who I wish ill upon, and so.

Yeah, but he's getting all the attention. They got to have him in there. People like him because always nobody's gonna watch. Isn't that crazy? They all hate it the other sixteen candidates. There are seventeen candidates as we speak. Sixteen of them hate the fact the guy's there. But he's got to be there otherwise nobody's doing it.

He's kind of good for business.

Yeah, damn rights. Yeah, he's just a mascot. But what if he accidentally wins?

What do you think?

What if he accidentally says something factual?

Yeah, he's just I can't believe the stuff he's said and he's gotten away with and no one's if.

I think, if you are rich and have minions, wouldn't you like to have minions?

I mean just for work around the house and stuff.

Exactly. Well, minions are going to cover for you and nod their head whether you're right or not. He's used to that. He said that Mexican people are rapists. Oh yeah, well he's also sensitive, of course. But I'm turning. I have to I have to pause.

Sure, Sure, of course, you're doing a good Karen Aois drives. I can't do the multitask of operating a vehicle and throwing together sentences. I've just one thing at a time for me. You're doing great.

Yeah, I guess I'm frustrated by I've always been interested in politics, and I'm frustrated by what I consider to be the millionaires club people in Congress. And I don't know that I like anybody, And that's what they are. They're all millionaires. Nobody's going to make the right decisions that we need to have made to be made about social security, about climate change, about infrastructure support, you know,

Do you not think that so much is revealed now about everyone that even back in the day, had we known everything there is to know about even Kennedy, who no one has anything.

But I don't care who the guy with no that sure.

We all know he was banging Marilyn Monroe and that's not even what.

Wow, I never heard that.

Yeah, yeah, there's I have pictures in my wallet.

What if I had pictures next pictures?

Oh yeah, I don't. It's but yeah.

I think angel it was a motorcycle.

Can hopefully not during my life. I hope you would not have the infant.

But he was a funny guy. And one day we were he was working on a motorcycle and I came over with that really old vaudeville joke, M, hey, you got any naked pictures of your wife? And the well, of course not want to buy some, and then everybody laughs a lot.

Yeah they used to.

So I said to this, hey you got any naked pictures? He said, sure, one from the rear.

She's sitting on the front of a camaro. That's in the garden. Now we plant flowers in the hood. That's great, That's that's great.

So as I say, I think we used to have remarkable people. But then I'm also reminded of something I heard years ago that I like, and that was, uh, they don't make them like they used to, and they never did, right, so something hindsight twenty twenty, that kind of stuff. Sure, it's just frustrating that you talk about Roosevelt people, you know, people like him, extraordinary men like Teddy Roosevelt. And there was no money in politics then. Most people had to be rich or they were like Lincoln,

It's inevitable then that at some point there'd have to be money in politics because it's hard. Being the president would be you could not pay me enough to try and do that job. No, no one is going.

To be happy with you unanimously.

I think comedy is hard, or I don't actually, but it's hard to like appeal to a whole audience. Being president would be the hardest stand up gig.

I heard a comic say once, I don't want to be too famous because then people then if you get too famous, then there are a lot of people that hate you.

I want to be someone like Mike Judge, who just has made things, and no one knows what he looks like. Oh yeah, he's the creator of all these things and.

Has the lifestyle in the creative spiritual fulfillment.

But no one ever bothers the guy that would be the best. I only bring up his name because he's a.

Friend, you know. I hang out with him. Yeah, yeah, you know.

Sometimes he's Henry's friend, and I'm friends with Henry and so.

And he's a good cartoons or something he made, well, he made, but he made he made Silicon Valley. You've seen that show, right, Cartoons. I'll say, yes, you.

It's a great show.

You'd love it. It's out there on demand.

People are demanding it.

It's just there's so many shows. I know, I can't you know, there's so much television. Most of the shows you've talked about, I haven't seen. There's not enough time. I've just started watching The Wire. Yea, I got one for you? Yeah? Ready, Yeah. I love Lucy. I haven't watched any I love Lucy. It's a killer.

So is that on Netflix or how to just order?

I'll bet you can find it someplace DVDs.

Maybe it's here at Walmart, passing the Walmart, or here we are on Mullen Road again. We're crossing Mullen Road. Just now correct me if I'm wrong. But as a kid, right there, there'd be piles of horse parts.

Yeah, because that was a.

For soap like in Fight Club.

Uh, I'm not so sure what they used. They used to call them blue factories years ago. You know.

To the right, here's where Doug's canoe place was. We went out on a canoe. I almost drowned and died. That's a story, right, because that was horrifying, horrifying. We we went all day in a canoe. Everything was fine. At the end of the day. Well, let's get out. Might as well preemptively take off our life vests.

Because we're only going over there, yes.

Like ten feet to the edge of the river. And then we start floating sideways towards filled water.

Well, we all.

Pushed against it with our oars and tipped ourselves over like something a mouse.

You disappeared. You were six years old, five years old. I don't remember. Disappeared underneath the boat down the river.

Because I was I was holding onto the boat, but you did not know I was sold underneath.

I said, right then, Oh my god, I guess I'll have to have another kid. Yeah, it was underwater, but I do it was I heard you say that caught up with your cut, your little face, and I'm We're going down the river and I'm thinking, damn, this is it. Yeah, me and this little boy, this is how I go. Yeah, looking at your little face, and all of a sudden, my little toes start touching sand. I submit that I drank a great deal of that.

Well it was that was loaded some right. Oh yes, well I swallowed a lot of water too. Did someone push on me and make me spit up water? I remember laying there, but I did anyone know? I just just cos I guess.

I think. I think what you said to me was don't touch me, leave me alone. After you got.

Maybe when you're a kid, you blame people for maybe I was blaming you.

And you.

Can head back to the house if you want.

Sure. So, like two months later, we'ren't going to Victoria, BC, and we go to Port Angelus in Washington and to catch a boat over to this island, Vancouver Island, not what it is, and and uh, we're on the boat. So you just had this horrible experience. Yeah, it's still resting your mind, and we're at the edge of the boat looking out of the water. I remember that and everything. And you said, what if the boat sinks?

It was a big boat, yeah, the ferry.

Yeah, well then then I guess we'll have to keep on top of the water, keep treading water. And uh no, I think what I said was you ask, what will you do? What will happen if you if we go into the water. I'm screwing this up. Now, that's okay. No, I don't happen if we go into the water, And I'll stay with you to the end. And then he said, and then you said, and then you'll leave.

Really okay, I'll remember that kind of worried.

I don't know that I knew I was telling a joke right there. Yeah, I was scared of what I still I still am not the most comfortable waterman.

I'm not the best swimmer. But I'll get in a canoe right now. I'm not scared.

Yeah, bring it, bring it here.

Bring it here. I'll jump out of it on purpose. I've never been over here. Look at that farmhouse.

This is great. Well. These were all five to ten to twenty acre pieces cut up back in the twenties, and they diverted the Clarkfork Weaver into into ditches so that there would be little farms out here. Oh well, these are all these all used to be little farms. That's why they call it Orchard Homes District.

What's Spurgeon Road? Who's this spurgeon?

Guy? Used to be a really large fish right on this road. Isn't that a sturgeon? Okay, okay, we see it's the These tales are good blown out of proportion, and then people for years think there's a monster in Flathead Lake when really it was just a spurgeon and sturgeon or spurgeon. But people used to see it arching it's serventine body. Well I was twenty feet long the folklore. Yeah, well,

Well, now my little battery thing's blinking. We might have to wrap it up here. Do we have it? Do you have any closing statements? Conclusionary is not it's my heart thing?

Oh god, I didn't know he's hooked up to your heart thing.

My dad's heart is he's got a marathon runners hard. His heart's gonna be fine, as is mine. We have good hearts. Doctors told you right, they hooked you up to a machine. They said, wow, nice heart. So we've been I'm gonna head back to LA tomorrow. We'll be back next week, of course with a with a guest and with Karen Kilgarriff. But this was I think a great episode. Yeah, you know, so I'm like forcing an end to it.

You are forcing an end to it.

Well, the battery thing blinked and it makes me nervous. I don't want to cut out, and we've reached our obligation.

Stand by that wiring job. I'm sorry.

I'm maybe someone did something to Maybe they threw a match in the light fixture.

I may not stand close by that wiring job. But oh, my dad's a better comedian than me.

You've been listening to Do you Need a Ride? With Jim Fairbanks and Chris Fairbanks d Y N A R.

And then you push the horn.

Are there?

We go