Edition of Sunday Night Line for me Garry jump Walker, I guess in for Mike Allen Junior. This is his regular slot on a Sunday evening. It's a pleasure to be with you anytime I get the chance. I'm jomping at the bid, believe me, and I hope it's been as great a day for you as it has been for me. I got to spend a good couple of hours in how now Brown County with my friends at Brookies Saloon there in Ripley, playing music with my good
friend Chris Cohens. We've done this now for twenty years together on and off at different places around town, and today we were stopping at Brookies on the Farewell tour and it was a fantastic show. Love to see the folks out there, had a great time, a great crowd of people, just good people, you know, just good Downder, the Reds good at the broom work this weekend over the Arizona Diamondback swept the series with another win today and now of even their record once again at five
hundred for the season. As Austin Nolmore mentioned, still seven and a half games out of first four and a half games out of a wild card position. But nonetheless they're back to break even, where they've been so many times already this season. I predicted at the beginning of the season that they would break even on the year at eighty one and eighty one, and so far they are upholding my prediction. There's a lot going on. There's always a lot going on. It's kind of a stupid
thing to say there's a lot going on. And one of the things that is going on is the continued spying by the Communist Chinese Party. Of course, last week we had two people arrested for agro terror, trying to smuggle fungus into our country to infect American crops. The Communist Chinese Party has a long plan, a long term plan, a year plan, or at least one hundred year plan, and we're kind of late to the.
Party in many ways.
Also significant this weekend the ice protest in Los Angeles that have led our President Donald Trump to send the National Guard to California National Guard out to LA to defend federal buildings and law enforcement ICE officials who are simply obeying, upholding the law, doing their job, doing exactly what President Trump has commissioned them to do, which is follow the law and get illegal criminals out of our country.
But there is this protest and who's funding it and why they're funding it, and who the people are who are in many cases assaulting law enforcement officials, which, by the way, is not expression of freedom of speech. Is not defending your First Amendment right when you are trying to breach federal buildings, when you are assaulting federal law enforcement or local law enforcement, that's not First Amendment stuff. To talk about all that and more. Is our first
guest tonight. He is Douglas Ernest. He's a retired captain, but a lot more than that, and has a book out we've talked once or twice before, called The Spirit of a True Patriot, The Inspiring Story of Retired Captain Douglas j Ernest, and he joins us on the telephone right now for the next few minutes. Doug Arnest, good evening and welcome to seven hundred WLW.
How are you, sir.
I'm doing great, Gary. It's a pleasure to be with you and your listeners this evening.
So how many years were you in the military and serving our country.
I was in for twenty years.
I served as an enlisted infantrymen and later became an armor officer in the US Army. All in total, I did about twenty years of service before I retired back around seven eighth nine.
Somewhere in that era, I had.
Pulled the plug and gone into the full civilian workforce full time.
You're an Operation Desert Storm, and thank you for everything you've done for our country and continue to do through your work. And you have pretty amazing story too, because you fell in love with corvettes at a certain point, as many people have, and you thought, you know, more people ought to experience how cool this is riding around in a corvette with the top down. And after you retired, you decided, you know, maybe I'll just go to work at car dealership because this turns me on so much.
And you were a salesperson, and then you thought you'd take that to the next level. Tell me how you did that taking it to the next level.
Well, great crushing, Gary. Well, it started out when I was a kid, about ten eleven years old. My uncle Bob, who was a Vietnam vetterner and had the seventy nine sober On Red at Lady two four speed coop and he showed up one day at my grandma's house in this corvette, and back then they only cost about ten thousand bucks. I remember everybody in my family thought how great it was that my uncle had come back from serving his country and he had saved all his.
Money and bought a corvette.
And that just left a major impression on my mind and kept help me catapult myself into what I wanted to do with my life.
So I joined the military at the.
Age of seventeen, and when I was in the military, I started tinkering with corvettes. I started playing with them, taking them apart, putting them together, selling them on the side, selling parts, just because I was very passionate about the car and I actually enjoyed it something I did most of my free time. I spent as a hobbyist playing with these cars. And then when I was in the military, I actually started my business in ninety four or ninety
five while I was serving simultaneously in the military. Because I did it as a side, I did it as my free time. I always rented a building, kept my parts, kept my shop, kept everything. They're very small, very very humble, three four or five cars, and over time it just grew and but you know, I've been so fortunate and blessed by the Lord that I've put my mission in life is to serve my customer, Serve my family, serve
my community, do a plesoura of different things. But my most important thing was I was doing something I love, I enjoyed, and I believe that people do do things in life that they love and enjoy. You can be successful at it, especially when you get up and go to work every day. It's not work if you enjoy it.
I'll tell you I've been in radio now for forty five years as of this month, somewhere on the air consistently since June first of nineteen eighty and You're right, it's never been like work for me doing this, talking to people, play music, whatever it was. So I can absolutely concur with that passion and that philosophy on life. So let's get down to some issues here. We're going to talk about the Chinese spies who are here in
droves actually in this country. They're hiding in plain sight in many places in our universities and our research labs as scientists. As the woman was who was arrested last week for smuggling a crop killing fungus into the United States from China. Her cohort also was found. But how many more of these are there out there?
Doug?
I mean, this is this is insane because we're being attacked from all kinds of different angles. And you consider that the Chinese, who in many cases before for at least the Trump administration, we're buying up great swaths of American farmland, especially near military bases. And now you find that they're trying to mess with us again our food supply by smuggling dangerous fungus into this country and again doing it basically in plain sight.
You know, great question, and we see this as the agricultural terrorism has increased over the last well three to four years. It's actually hyper increased since the Biden administration took over and they started doing these student visas and these B one twenty one visas where they allow to plafore different people to come into this country illegally and legally. And when these people come into our country, these people are coming through Customers Border Patrol, they're very confident that
they can get these bioterrorism weapons through to us. Now, these just aren't you.
Know, something that can make somebody sick.
These are things that if you read the articles that were put out on the news of the last few days, this is stuff that kills the fetuses and women. It will cause a new baby feet is to explode inside.
The woman's body.
This is some pretty nasty stuff. And this is stuff that's created in the lab in Wuhan. It's something that's created overseas that these China nationals have created in.
Order to destroy our country.
You know, it's a way that they conduct their warfare from secret terrorism. Now, if there's something another counterpart to that, how many how many US operatives do we have in China? Would I would argue you have a handful of them because you can't get into China. If you try to cross into China illegally, you'll get shot and killed. But for the last four years to come to our country, that left the door wide open. They gave you a VVA and I'll let you come right across the river.
They gave you a cell phone, they gave you a stipend. So it's been a sad state of affairs for the last four years in our country. But the good thing is that the Trump administration is taking a wholehearted approach to be able to ring in the realms of these terroristic cells and be able to bring us back to what we would consider as a Americans normalcy. And right now, they did catch these perpetrators. It's not like they got in like there's thousands out there, but they are.
Going to catch it.
And these investigators will work hard and diligently to find these networks, cramp down, find out where they come from, and.
Make sure it doesn't happen again.
And there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes that the people don't see that is going to make it harder to get these these products into our country that can destroy Americans' lives.
Well, I think this illustrates too Douglas, why it's so important that the President has re imposed these travel bands on these countries that we know are not only hostile towards us, but contain all kinds of unvetted people who have been heretofore allowed into our country, and imposing further
travel restrictions on people coming in from communists China. It's very important that we do this and get ahead of the game, and when we've been behind the eight ball for so long because of what the Biden ad Ministry did or didn't do to protect this nation. And don't you think that the travel bans and the restrictions are going to help a lot as we try and get a handle on this.
The travel ban is an absolutely necessary.
Thing that needed to be done by the Trump administration to again real in the realms of what's going on with the open just wide open, full frottle to the metal, to to let people come into this country. You can see what that brought us with the Egyptian national that couldn't get a gun because he didn't have the permission and he was out, he was out of turn for
his temporary visa, so he couldn't get a weapon. He couldn't go buy a weapon, so he decided to use a frame flower to destroy people and to destroy American lives.
So absolutely this is something that has to be done.
And the Trump administration has been doing a fantastic job since they took over to number one close the border. Border crossings illegally are down about ninety seven percent. They'd done a great job of throwing the border, increasing the funding and the personnel for Customs border patrol, and also
just clamping down and attempting to clamp down. Now there's another thing that is the paradox of this, as we have these American judges who, at every which way we turn, we see on the legacy media that they are turning the orders of the president around and attempting to contradict what the President of the United States does and acted these orders to keep our citizens safe.
So it's going to be a tug of war.
It's going to be this back and forth, this tension between the Trump administration and these judges, these small judges and these small jurisdictions that are trying to override the policy of the presidency.
Well, you mentioned the flame throwing terrorists from Colorado. The Egyptian national who has now been arrested and will face trial and his family being deported or they're making the effort anyway, couldn't get a gun because of his status, but we couldn't get him out of the country.
He was here.
Illegally, and there are so many others that are here illegally, and there is a contingent of people in this country. I don't know that they're unpatriotic. I don't know if they care. I don't know if they're just misguided or misinformed who are protesting the efforts of President Trump, of Immigration Ice and federal law enforcement officials to round them up and get them out of here, because the first thing they did when they entered this country or stayed
or overstayed their visa was break the law. And now we find out that many of them are involved in rape, in child pornography, in murder, and of course the attempted murder of all those people in Boulder last week at the protest by people who were trying to get the hostages out of Hamas. What is the mentality you think of those people is there? Is it brainwashing, is it misinformation? Or are they part of a broader plan to divide and cause chaos here in the United States?
What's your view?
You know, very that's a great question, And over the last three years, I've done hundreds of these interviews, and that's a very common question. Now, just to give you a quick backdrop, when I grew up, my grandfather on one side was a Democrat and my grandfather on the other side was a Republican, So I was able to see both sides of the spectrum, and my grandfather's Democratic party was quite different than what we see with the Democratic Party, you.
Know, JFK and so exactly.
So I've been able to grow up and see both sides. And as a kid, I didn't know which way to go. I didn't know whether which side to lean to because I was more.
Interested in chasing, chasing, you know, chasing.
My dream and you know, opening up a Corvette dealership and drinking beer all the time. That I didn't really become involved in politics until my late forties, early fifties, when I saw what was happening to my country in the last three to four years under the Biden administration, when I decided to you know, not keep my mouth shutting more and take the stand and the way I take my standards through my street speech into you know, and talk on these radio shows and express my views
that are good for my country. But I would think, you know, when I had this discussion with people over the years, you know, I think it starts with the money. And you know, if you if you lean left, you and you side with the Democrat, you know.
There's profit in that. There's a lot of money in that.
And when I was in military training school for lieutenant school back in ninety six and Fort Knox, we had this great military professor who was teaching us about political idealologies, and he put it really simple for me back in ninety six ninety seven era, and he said, the Republicans are a group of people that believe that you are in control of your own destiny, that you don't have the right to implict your views and implict.
Your your ideologies on other people's lives.
Everybody has a right to be free and make your own decision, and you can't control other people's environment. Well, the democratic view or the liberal view is the opposite. They believe that you cannot control yourself and within that you have to control.
Everybody else from the outside.
So they're trying to just control things that are usually from you know, a common sense perspective, something that would be uncontrollable.
And you know, we we do need both parties.
You can't have one party, otherwise our country would be diminished. And we are the longest running countries, the greatest nation and the planet. And you'll realize that once you travel the world and serve in other nations and see how good we got and how great we got in this country. Why we've been around for almost, you know, two hundred and fifty years. So I would think number one is the money. Number two it's the teaching of the political
idealology that a got gaged. It's in just brought to you through cultural reasoning and people bring it with them. And then number three it's once you're in and you get the inertial forces, it's hard to go back once you start taking on you know, Democratic voder you know, these judges start taking money from the Democratic Party.
You know, they get a lot of money.
They get a lot of money, and there's billions of dollars raised to support these groups, and a lot of that money comes from overseas and for people that you wouldn't want to be investing into our elections and to
our government bodies. So I think it's that tryad of where these these these what you would call, you know, crazy idealolities and people that would you know, and fight to the death and harm our fellow American citizens and put your fellow brothers and sisters that are our neighbors ahead of other people that come to this country to hurt us and come to this country illegally and come to this country to harm our citizens. It just doesn't make common sense. But you know, I've heard that, you know,
years ago. If you tell a lie enough, sooner or later, people are going to start to believe it.
Well, I agree with you, Douglassers, that it's important to have more than one party, because we see what a one party system does in states like California, in Illinois, in New York, in Massachusetts, and just tick off all of the blue states in this country that are essentially one party states. But is it you know, the thing is, do we want the second party to be the communist party? Because that's the way it looks right now because of what's happened to the Democrat Party.
Yeah, the Democratic Party is on it. They're in shambles. If you look at that if you look at that map from November when President Trump wung the election, it was bright.
Red all the way across. Oh yeah, on the left and right.
Yeah.
If you go, if you go county, if you go county by county, you're absolutely correct. Listen, I'm sorry our time's up, but I appreciate your time so much. The spirit of a true patriot. Douglas Ernest, thank you again for joining us tonight.
Man.
It was my pleasure, Geary, take care and thank you.
For agadud to keep putting out the message for our country, for a party and to keep America safe and helped America come up with another.
Two hundred and fifty years.
God bless you, Ryan Wood, you too.
Thank you, Sir Ryan Wood on the grooming of America as it continues, Lady Maga Usa, right after the news. I started talking to Jeez on nightcaps probably six seven years ago. Maybe our first conversation was way back then in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. He is a I don't know what he's doing currently. He is a former performer, entertainer.
He did a mean Britney Spears at one point. I know that I've seen the photos, and he is very strongly opinionated about the continued efforts to groom young children into lifestyles that they shouldn't be exposed to a certainly at the ages of two to five years old, much less any time before you know, before adolescence at the
very very earliest. And to talk about what's continuing to go on in this country even after the election of Donald Trump and the the end of the woke movement movement, Ryan would Lady Maga USA formerly how are you doing?
Ryan?
Hello?
Gary.
Oh, it's such an honor to talk to you. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. And yeah, like you said, you know, I'm a drag performer. I play the character of Lady Maga to troll the left and I've had a lot of fun. But the LGBTQ they took drag and for some reason, they decided to take their most sexual performances and do it in front of children like my nieces and nephews, and the entire focus of the LGBTQ movement, which I had nothing to do with me as a gay dude. I don't know what the hell
they represent anymore. But everything they do is child focused and I find it predatory.
I find it creepy.
And you know, we're not talking about drag queens doing Dolly Parton or Aretha Franklin at the State Fair. That could be funny, nobody would really care. They're deliberately doing the most explicit, the most sexualized things like a Trappie's and a song in front of children. And I believe the LDBLGBTQ agenda, the queer movement, which they call it now is it's truly meant to corrupt the minds of
children and normalize the most deviant things possible. So I've stepped away from it, and I've fought it because I dressed up as Lady Maga and I sort of bend the mold so to speak, you know, dressing up and playing a female character. You know, the legislature here in Utah, they asked me to testify to help get Senate Bill sixteen passed, which it did, thank god, and we made
it illegal to mutilate little children. And my message was, look, if you're wearing a dress, if you're wearing makeup, no matter how fabulous you look, you are not a woman. You can never become a woman. And so yeah, I've tried to I've tried to speak out for common sense, and the woke mod came for me and got me fired from my job as a flight attendant, lost me eight year career because they labeled me trans pulbick and islama pubic and all the rest.
So it's been a rough road.
Well, many people, many people, Ryan would consider this hateful talk we're having right now, just because we're pointing out the obvious grooming and pedophilia that I believe is going on within the LGBTQ plus community because of the month we're in. And I said, well, what month are we in. We're in June. Uh, And that's that's all it is to me. This is June, which is a month of on the calendar. It's not any special month. It's it's summertime.
It's Donald Trump's birthday month, it is father Father's Day is a week from tonight.
It's Father's Day month.
But other than that, I don't know why June would be any more significant or special for the lgb two t Q plus crowd than any other month of the year.
You can call them the LGBTQ mafia if you want, because that's what they are. They're a militant political mafia. They're not out for inclusion, they're not out for tolerance, they're not out for integration. They're off for cultural dominance. They want it to be illegal for you and I.
To call out what they are.
And they get so offended when we call them groomers and pedophiles, but they never say, how dare you call us that? We're not that? Well, yes you are.
Well here here's the thing too, when I saw just a story this past week about a drag queen's story hour in a public library. I think it was in Vermont, I'm not quite sure. But for two to five year olds to be exposed to this, I don't know anybody who's a parent or anyone who has a lick of sense about them and cares about kids who would want to expose two to five year olds to any kind of sexual uh heterosexual uh training or anything else. That
These are children, right, These are precious children. It's not time for them to have sex ed thanks to a drag queen or anybody else at that age.
No, absolutely not. And what I don't understand is, you know, I do not promote homosexuality. I don't think it's the equivalent of the American traditional family. My fight is to defend my Christian brothers and sisters and their families because that's the back point of our society. It's not homeost. No offense to us homeold you know, got exists. Secular freedom is great, But these people, I don't understand their obsession with other people's children and validation from children, especially
in a public library. Look, it's some drag queen. If you know if they're doing something tasteful or glamorous and they want to do it privately for their friends and family, I really don't care, and I'm not going to try to shut them down and will shut them down when they invade our public spaces and they push it on children, and especially in a taxpayer funded venue.
How dare you?
How dare you go into that public library where my family could be, you know, my my Mormon family and my nieces and nephews could be in then, and they could see that by force. See they're they're they're forceful, they're militant, they're a mafia. We will invade your children's library. We will groom then we will uh you know, in Disneyland, we will have a man with a beard at the vivity Bobbedy boutique, dressed as a woman doing your little
girl's hair. Go to hell, all of them. So that's the good news is I think I think America spoke when we voted for Donald Trump.
I think so.
And I also think that your average white gay guy doesn't align with this. Lesbians especially don't align with it because all of us are being told it's so funny, you know, they all scream about conversion therapy to become straight. But they're literally telling gay men and gay women that if you're not attracted to a trans person, you're transphobic. In other words, if I'm not attracted to a woman because she identifies as a man, I am transphobic. And if a lesbian is not attracted to a Okay, I'm
getting all confused. A man who identifies as a woman, right with males general, they are transphobic. Tell me that's not conversion therapy, and force like they're disgusting. So I just don't hold back. I just call them for what they are. And I will say this, this sounds very harsh, but I'll explain why I believe this. You heard of Elizabeth Smart right from here in Utah.
Sure, the woman who the girl who was kidnapped and held captivity, rape, all of that for years. Yeah, and then finally finally was found and freed.
Yeah.
Uh.
And she so this woman I when I worked in the airline, I had her on my flight.
She's a lovely.
Woman, full of light and positivity, and she does ted talks and her messages. You know, I'm not going to let them ruin my life and.
She's moved on.
The point is Elizabeth Smart is able to move on because her abuse was temporary. If you permanently alter the sex organs of a child by giving them puberty blockers or cut off her girl's breasts or shrink of boys testicles, and then inhibit their ability to have intimate sensations later in their lives, and you get them hooked on drugs because it involves their sex organs, it is a form
of sexual abuse. And I will say those doctors and those parents who do this to children are worse than child molesters because at least the caterer's molested can move on later. Sexual abuse is permanent, and we need to call them that. We need to call them the worst form of child abusers, on par with child molesters, same same game. And yet we normalize it and we argue with.
You have to register as sex offenders. I'm serious.
They should go to prison. They should go to prison. You know uh ihan omar uh uh. Female genital mutilation is rampant in Somalia and Michigan.
Of course it is uh.
You know where they where They remove the part of a group anatomy, So you can't have a sexual sensation. It's the same thing they're doing to these children. I just I'm still in shock that we're even like having this conversation, that our fellow Americans are are condoning this and saying it's okay. And also, like my allegedly Republican
Mormon Governor Spencer Cox, he's an evil, evil man. He vetoed the bill to protect women in sports, he vetoed the bill to stop child mutilation, He panders to the lg BTQ, and he was named person of the Year by Queer Salt Lake magazine, the most far less you know groomer magazine. He was named person of the Year. So enemies are not just the obese, purple haired women's screaming for trans rights. It's people on the right who act as if it's just a political disagreement and we
can talk about it. No, we can't talk about it. Well, you're going to hell for what you're doing. You belong in prison for what you're doing. And that's why, you know, I call it out, and then I'm called transphobic, and I've been blamed for suicides of trans youth. Literally, people have screamed, and.
They're starting to get the facts in and the research is being done, Ryan, it leads to more suicides of these kids who've been subjected to these therapies than just being able to grow out of it and find out who they are without this being forced upon them, or being told that the body that they were born in isn't the body that they belong in.
There.
To me, like, look, I was an a feminine little kid. I love Barbie, Princess Pink, my little Pony, all of it. Had I been born today, I would have believed them when they said.
You like girl things, you're a girl. You'll be happier if you're a girl.
I would have believed them. I would have gone along with it. And to me, nothing, absolutely nothing could be more traumatizing or mentally damaging as a child to believe there's something fundamentally wrong with my body, with my biology, with my with my actual body. What does that say to a child?
You know?
If I had, let's say me, if I dealt with me as dad today and I had a little boy like me, I'd say, hey, you know what, you're pretty creative, aren't you. You love Pink? You love Barbies? Yeah, Barbies, I find they're pretty play with your dolls. You're not a girl, and you're going to go up and be a strong man. And and you know, I wouldn't villainize me or insult me or spank me like I was. And I well, probably why I ended up doing dragons.
But you know, just don't make a big deal out of it, and then balance the kid with good, you know, masculine activities as well, some horseback riding, and say what it is. But to tell the child you are in the wrong body, it's satanic, it is demonic. And hearing you, I've been posting videos of when they went to Pride and such. The Satanic temple was there and they were
unbaptizing Christians by putting blood on their forehead. There was a topless woman, there were children, people saying hailed Satan and this is in Utah, and that is who is behind the LGBTQ movement, that it is demonic, it is satanic. We don't have a political battle, we have a spiritual battle. And yeah, I'm a home all or whatever, but I know God and i know light, and I'm sober because of Jesus Christ, and so I reckon nice evil And when you go after the little ones. I mean, adults
doing what they do consensually, who cares. But when you go after the little ones and kids like I was, you're there's just nothing more evil.
And you know, there's there's there's a famous scripture that whoever, whoever would harm and I'm paraphrasing here the scripture. I don't have it out in front of me, it would be better better to have a millstone thrown around their neck and be thrown in the ocean, or better than that if they'd ever been born.
Uh.
Yeah, that's exactly right, that's exactly right. But we've normalized because here's the thing. What they're trying to do with this trans normalization, that a child knows who they are when they're born. It's a step toward normalizing the idea that children are capable of adult consent. And we all know what that means. Ye see, they're they're getting us used to this idea that children know who they are, children know what's best for them, They're just as capable
as an adult. They fully understand the world.
And changing changing the language from pedophile to minor attracted person.
Oh, that's totally what's next. That's totally what's next, And in my opinion, that isn't even as bad as mutilating kids, like they're on the same level. Does that make sense that it's the same level of evil. People act as if mutilating children in the name of trend is not as bad as minor attracted person when we say, oh, that's next. No, this is just as bad as what could potentially be next. We are in the clagmire of evil and demonic abuse.
We're already there.
I agree, I agree. I'm sorry we got to cut it off there, Ryan.
Well, God bless me. I hope people. I hope people stand up more militantly.
Like I do.
Well.
Happy, yes, happy June, and God bless America.
Thank you, Lady Maga USA. Ryan Wood with us on this special edition of Gary Jeff Walker on your Radio. We will be switching gears completely after the news at eight o'clock, when John Willis will be our guest as we talk Newport Italian Fest this September.
Our iHeart radio, New music.
Come to everyone who's not watching the Tonys or something actually interesting, like maybe the NBA playoffser it's the Major League Baseball. Speaking of Major League Baseball, the Reds actually
swept somebody again. The sweep was on today against the Dbacks, after the incredible comeback after the rainout on Friday night, whether it was tied and the Reds of course walked off for the first of two finished games on Saturday, as you well know, and then the pounding that they gave Arizona yesterday, and then today another victory at GABP. The Reds back to thirty three and thirty three on this season, and you know, right up equaling what I say.
My prediction is for the team for the year, which is eighty one and eighty one, which may be good enough for a wild card.
We don't know.
We don't know at this point if they'll make eighty one and eighty one. Maybe they'll do better. They've shown no signs that they're capable of doing better. But you know, take the victories where you can get them. Today was one of those days, and this weekend was a great
weekend if you're a Reds fans. This season continues nine minutes after the hour Gary Jeff Walker in a special edition of Sunday Night Live, looking forward to a very special week ahead because on Thursday night it officially begins the thirty third annual Newport Italian Fest. And there's some new things this year which we will go over and a new person who's going to be joining me on stage during the weekend to do MC work. And we have him on the telephone right now. His name is
John Willis. John, welcome to the show. How are you, Paison?
Thanks? Gary, appreciate you having me on. I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Doing fantastic? Now? How long? How long you have been with Newport City? You're you're a new hire.
You know.
I've been with the city at Newport for about four months. Yeah, and it's it's been a great experience. I've lived in the city for about a year and you know, they've thrown me into things.
It's a it's a great team to.
Be a part of and I'm excited that I get to be more involved with Italian Fest.
What what did you do previously before you're with the city, John?
So, before I worked for the city, I worked on political campaigns. Oh so, I was managing campaigns over and over in Hamilton County and I decided I wanted to work for the government, so I went over and got a job with the city at Newport, and I'm working in economic development for the city, so I work with our business owners and I help them in any way the city can. And then we're also looking to fill empty spaces and attract new businesses as well well.
I mean with a background with a background in politics, at least you know you don't have to get down and dirty with all of the things that go on during political campaigns. But it gives you a great insight and experience on how to maybe get things done working for the city. And as you mentioned, in economic development and the like. So and like I said, you don't have to you don't have to be involved in politics necessarily. You can kind of enjoy the periphery and do some
positive things for Newport. I think that's a great thing now exactly.
I was just going to add the biggest things communication, and that's why I'm excited to come out here and talk to your audience about Italian Fest, because we want everyone to know that it's coming and it's going to be here this week.
Well, unofficially starts at four o'clock Wednesday at Pompiglio's where they have the annual Mayor's Bochi Ball Tournament, which I've been to actually one year. John, I've been involved with the Italian Fest. I've been humbled and honored enough to be involved with Italian Fest in Newport since about twenty ten or two thousand and nine. So, and this is the thirty third annual, which originally cooked up by Thomas
Godooley Senior, whose son is now mayor. And we have a new city manager in Newport, John Hayden, Who's you know, off to a head start, a running start, I would say, But then on Thursday night the ball really gets rolling. After the bochi balls are done, the ball really gets rolling. On Thursday night. The festival grounds will open at five o'clock. Pete Wagner and Nancy James, who have been a part of Newport Italian Fest for as long as there's been one,
I believe. I don't know if you've met any of those people yet, but they're great folks, and Nancy James in particular, it has been a personality, a media personality, a TV personality, a radio personality in this town for longer than I've been here, which is thirty one years at this point. And I swear she gets younger every year. I don't know how that works. But you'll see if
you meet Nancy James, and you will this weekend. She seems to get younger and more vibrant every She's a beautiful lady, an incredible singer, incredible entertainer, and she's been a part like bread and butter with Italian fest along with Paul Wagner and the Pete Wagner Orchestra. That happens, as I mentioned, Thursday at five o'clock six point thirty, the opening ceremony, and that's all the muckety MUCKs, the mayor and the city commissioners and everybody out on stage.
And I know you're gonna be there too.
And then and then John.
This is so integral to what Italian Festas brings, as far as the heritage of Italian legacy and footprint in Newport, the Italian American Sons and Daughters Award. Every night there is some honoree at seven o'clock Thursday, we'll do that. And then Marino Frizzetti, who you gotta meet, man, and you will. He is incredible. I call him the Italian Tom Jones been anyway, any thoughts or comments on any of this?
Well, no, absolutely, Like you said, it's it's amazing to celebrate an important part of the city's heritage, and it's great to honor some of these families that have been instrumental in founding Newport and making it what it is today. And you know, I've heard a lot about Marino Frizzetti and I've seen him perform online, but I'm so excited to watch him in person and hopefully get to meet him too, at least I'll be there when you're introducing him on Thursday night.
Well, you've got a taste from watching a video, but there is nothing like seeing Moreno live, believe me, and I believe it. And we got Vinyl, then we got Vinyl Countdown closing things out on Thursday night at nine o'clock. And Thursday's kind of a short schedule because it's the opening ceremonies and that is the main enchilada there or the main fas old as we probably ought to say. And that's five to eleven on Thursday night there at Festival Park down below the Levee for the first time.
As I mentioned at the top of this, you're going to be doing some MC work and I'm excited to see you on stage. I know you'll have a ball because it's such a great time and the people who attend Italian Fest are so welcoming and it's just great. I mean, you'll get you'll get a buzz being up there on stage. I guarantee it.
That's what I hear.
And you know, I know that every year over one hundred thousand people come to Newport just for Italian Fest. So I'll definitely have to get with the mayor and some of the other folks that have been involved for a long time so that I have some material on stage and we're working with the bands. But I've heard it's electric and intoxicating. I'm excited to be a part of it.
Friday night again at five o'clock late gates opening on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, your kind of all day events. The festival grounds open again Friday on the thirteenth. Pete Wagner back, You'll be there for that. I'm planning on being there for the Honored Italian American Sons and Daughters Award on Friday at six forty five. Jennifer Marie Marianni is going to be honored and Marino Frizzetti is back, and then you'll take it the rest of the evening on Friday
with Pete Wagner and the Matt Tolentino Band. And this is something that's new this year, announcement that I just got with the program, and we will see throughout the weekend. On Thursday and Friday night, both nights at Italian Fest in Newport, we'll have strolling accordion players performing throughout the crowd, which is just great. I mean, you want to talk about a taste of Italy.
London.
Shoal and the aforementioned Matt Tolantino will be there from five thirty to eight pm strolling the grounds and entertaining the folks as they go to the food booths and visit some of our other vendors and participants. Now, Saturday is going to be your day man. Saturday and Sunday the keys are yours. I'm handing the keys over to you,
John Willis. And the festival grounds open at noon both days, and there's some incredible performers once again, Marino Frizetti, Swan which I've never heard that one party band and doctor Zouit. Do you know anything about any of these performers yet?
So at this point I don't know anything about the bands on Saturday.
Now looking ahead, I don't want to.
Get ahead of ourselves that I'm excited for the naked karate girls on Sunday night.
I knew you. I knew, I knew you were gonna be a big favor. Go ahead.
I've been to a show there and they and they rock, and all these bands are great, you know they it's it's competitive to play at the festival that gets one hundred thousand attendees, like Italian Fest, and we're excited to.
Have them all come in. So yeah, I remember, no one will be disappointed.
Honestly, the first time I interviewed somebody with the naked karate girls for this event, mind you, I asked the stupid DJ questions like, so you're not naked, you don't do karate, and you're not girls. It's like a question everybody asked. But give us, give us a little taste of what people will see when they see the naked karate girls perform Sunday night at six o'clock.
John, Well, they're going to see a couple of guys who are given that they're all on stage, and uh, you know they rock, so you know, anticipate some some great music, some some great performers as well on stage, and you know, to be completely entertained.
All right.
The other thing I want to mention for people if you've never been to Italian Fest in Newport before, is there is a tent on the festival grounds every year that has families the different Italian families that settled in northern Kentucky and helped make Newport such a special place that it is today. And you see the family pictures, the lineage of each one of those families as you go through the photo arrays, and I highly recommend, since this is your first Italian Fest, that you take some
time while you're there to check them out. And the food, I mean, everybody, everybody always wants to know, did you get your Italian sausage. Somebody that I used to talk to on the radio, Tracy Jones, used to say, oh, you're going to Sausage Fest. No, it's not sausage Fest, it's Italian Fest. But yes, they have Italian rope sausage with peppers and onions and marinara and it's wonderful, and yeah,
I will get one of those. Do you have any specific kind of taste for anything food wise this weekend. Do you have a favorite Italian food?
John, You know, I'll tell you Gary, the thing that I'm looking forward to the most is piganos stuffshells.
It's made with three cheeses.
It's one of my favorite dishes and I'm definitely gonna get some this weekend, all right.
And there are so many people being paid tribute to this weekend at Newport Italian Fest as well, those those who have passed and those who are still with us, And it's a time to treasure those incredible people who have made Newport such a special place over the years. We only missed twenty twenty, and that was the year that everybody missed everything because of COVID. I still say under false pretenses, but that's just me. But I'm looking
forward to it again Thursday night. I'll be there you, John Willis will be there and you will experience, for the first time in person, the magic of what it's like to be at least an honorary Italian.
And I'm excited for it. And you know, Gary, you've been great. You've given me so much advice. I know We've got to talk a few times leading up to it. And you know, You've answered some of my questions, but I've got a question for you that I want you to answer.
All yes, sir.
What was the biggest surprise when you the first time you m see the Italian Fest? What shocked you when you got behind the mic up there?
Well, I don't know if anything shocked me behind the mic. I've been em seeing stuff for a long time before I started doing Italian Fest. But I think the thing that was special to me, the most special thing standing up on stage, was the acceptance and the welcoming of the crowd to somebody who number one not Italian heritage.
You know.
I always say that the city of Newport makes me an honorary Italian once a year for a whole weekend, and it's so nice to be welcomed in the family.
And I guess that's the thing.
It's the embrace of that whole community to someone who you know, I didn't live in Newport all my life. I moved to Newport in two thousand, so I've been there for a quarter century now. But a lot of places you go if you're not from there, if you're not originally from there, you always kind of feel like an outsider, no matter how nice people are. But John, I'm telling you, once you were embraced by these people and you're welcomed in like family, you're always family, and
they make you feel like it. You're never you're never an outsider. So once you once you get it, and it's not it's not like anything nefarious, like you're not going to be made to kiss anybody's ring or anything like that. But what I'm saying is you get in and you're in man as long as you want to be in, and you feel that warmth. And that's what
a new Newport Italian Fest. You think it's only a celebration of Italian heritage, but it's the Sons the Italian American Sons and Daughters Awards, so's it's a truly American festival as well, because only in this country could an entire ethnic group be welcomed and assimilated into it and
made a part of it. And the people who are involved with Newport's Italian Fest except everyone, no matter what their walk of life, no matter who they are, and no matter what other beliefs they may have or don't have, And it's just it's a big family. So I think that's what you're about to walk into. I hope you're ready for.
That, absolutely.
And you know it's Newport's a great city to live in, It's an even better city to work for.
This is a great team. I felt welcome since day one.
And you know, we want everybody to feel welcome an Italian Fest.
And I and yes, and I and I think I think they do. And we make a big effort to get the word out there.
And I am excited for everyone to come to Newport this weekend.
And and yeah, I look forward.
To experiencing Italian Fest with h from from my perspective, I've heard so much about it.
I think I'm.
Excited to go, and I hope everyone else is excited to come to.
I'm excited to witness your a moment in the spotlight. John Willis, right, well, thank you, Dary, all right, brother, excuse me, and thank you so much. And uh, Festa Italiana. We'll see you there on Thursday night.
Capeche yes, sir choo, I'll see you soon, all.
Right, chow bela uh John Willis, who will join us on Thursday Friday