Our 1st Amendment Under Threat!

to one hundred podcasts. Thank you guys for listening, especially the ones that have started with Day one, which is I believe a couple of years ago now. And then welcome the new watchers and listeners. We're on YouTube now. We've been doing this for about five episodes, and that, you know, YouTube is what I've been doing a lot of lately, and those of you that follow the multiple channels that I have and the multiple pieces of social media, you'll see that we've been doing about one video a

day between the Smiths, which is our family blog. We've been doing those on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then Amber has a new show called A Rise with Amber on the Smiths channel every Sunday morning. This podcast comes out every Monday morning, and then I've been doing a Granger blog on Wednesdays and an Earl Dibvils thing probably on Friday. So we just put out for when I'm recording this video. We just put out Don't Cough on Me music video on YouTube. And there are so many more things I

have planned. I'm actually going to go this weekend head back to Mom's and we're going to get back on another Earl Dibbles. So there's Earl. It's like had a resurgence during this crazy world world thing. Guys, I have to like censor everything that I say because YouTube. I'm relying so much on YouTube right now because it's kind of on my only way to pay the bills, and

they are still censoring everything and demonetizing everything. If you say certain words about the world and what the world is doing right now, there's like these keywords that they're picking up on their algorithm and then like slashing videos and demonetizing them. So it feels like about half the videos I've done, I'm still learning the new lingo that YouTube is allowing, which, by the way, isn't that kind

of crazy. I mean, we talk all the time about the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, freedom of speech, which is the amendment that allows me to sit here on this podcast and talk to you guys and do all these YouTube videos and everyone won't give you my opinion about life and love and happiness and lack thereof. And can you believe that that amendment is under threat every day? You know, we talk about the Second Amendment

being under threat, but so is the first. I mean, look, look what's happening around the world and people, you know, videos getting taken down and Twitter posts getting taken down or even worse, some people's Twitter posts staying up, which is a whole different conspiracy theory. And I am just a for those of you don't know me, I am a Measley country music singer, and I shouldn't get involved too much in crazy conspiracies or world events. I'm just

going to call it like I see it. And I feel like our first Amendment right is under threat a little bit. It's under fire as well as the second. So all that being said, I have to watch what I say constantly now so that I don't get slashed up or demonetized, because if I get demonetized. That's really the only income I have paying the bills during these times.

Let me get to some questions. This has been the kind of the theme to the last several podcasts since I can't have a guest because we're practicing this stay away from each other thing, you know what it's called. And I've been answering your questions on social media hashtag Granger Smith podcast. Right. I've also been reading the comments from below these YouTube videos. And you could be listening to this on Spotify or on a podcast asked app,

or you could be watching it on YouTube. I think there's a couple other ways too, but if you're watching on YouTube, I'm also kind of taking comments or questions from the comments and answering some of these. And if you have something you want to ask me, go ahead and comment below this video, or go to social media and hashtag Granger Smith podcast and then ask your question. And this is the first one I want to read. And I kind of I got some questions, but I

have not prepared anything. I haven't prepared so my mind is completely cleared. I don't know what's about to come out. I hope I say the right things. That's the story of my life all the time. Anyway. First question is, I've listened to all of your podcasts and this morning I'm finishing up. So he listens, says, I've listened to all of them backwards, so this morning I'm finishing up episode one. Have you ever met and told Guard Brokes about his impression on you as a kid, And the

answer is yes, I have. We've played a couple of shows with Garth and exactly how you think he might be he is in real life. He's, you know, the what we'd say in the band. He's the country music Oprah. You know, he's like he's a man to the people. He's a man and he never turns it off, like his eyes locked on Garth eyes, you know where everything sounds like he's reading a speech, but it's actually just

coming out of his brain. That's the real Garth. And we've played a couple of shows with him and I've gotten to spend some good time with him. And what this question is asking is earlier on a I think I believe it was episode one on the podcast I talked about Garth was such a big inspiration to me into what country music is because my grandpa passed away in the late eighties, and I was it's just a

little bitty. And my first impression of country music was when my grandmother put on his tombstone, if Tomorrow Never comes, will you know how much I loved you? And that's a lyric from a Garth Brooks song. And that song had just come out as brand new on country radio at the time, I believe it was eighty nine. And I saw that and I still remember that to this day.

And I remember just seeing what a crazy impression that a song lyric from a songwriter, from a country music artist on country music radio, What that could do to a life, what that could do do a family. And I was witnessing at a funeral. You know these words that Garth wrote on a tombstone that will live forever in this family's memory to commemorate their love for each other. And that is crazy. And that was my first big, real impression of country music. And I didn't tell Garth that,

you know what I did. I did tell Garth that, but I didn't. I just said, you know, really quick, I just said, I need to tell you that your song if Tomorrow Never Comes is on my granddad's Gravestone. I didn't go into detail like I'm doing right now, and I wouldn't say that I'm friends with him, but

but we are real good acquaintances. Like we've had great conversations, and he's taught me a lot backstage, and he's taught me a lot by his words and things that he doesn't say, just the way that he carries himself, the way he takes care of his band and crew, and the way that he takes care of his fans. I've learned a lot from that guy. And he reached out when we lost River. He made a big effort to reach out and give me a hug during that time.

And we did a show right around then in Boise on the Smurf turf at the Boise Football Stadium, and we did a show there together. Does the last time I saw him, and it was really special, special event across a good man man. I'm also very blessed to have met a hero like that, very lucky. Some of these questions I would kind of screenshot on my phone if I saw it several times, if I saw the

same question. Here's one that I saw several times. How are you staying in shape any recommendations for home workouts, and I kind of talked about this on episode twenty four and I left it open to you guys to kind of comment if you know any home workouts, and I talked about this on a vlog on my Granger channel as well. But what I've kind of always done in trueth that to me, is starts in the kitchen. For sure. It starts with what you eat. At least

that's for me. It's eighty percent what I eat, twenty percent of what I do. And I like to break a sweat once a day. It's just like a little rule I have. If I could get out and do whatever that takes to break a sweat once a day, that does really well for me. I don't know the science behind it. I just know it works really well for me. The second thing I do is I do strength training. And that doesn't necessarily mean weights. It just means I focus on muscle groups. And I've done this

for probably twenty years maybe more. And what that means for me is I usually start on I usually take Sundays off, depending on the if it's a normal schedule, I take Sundays off. I start on Monday, and I do chest and I could add like triceeps to that. I could add shoulders to that, but it's mainly chest. Tuesday, I do legs and that includes you know, quads and hamstrings and calves. It could include some core, it can

include anything lower body. Really. On Wednesday, I'll do back, which could be the back of the shoulders, could be lower back. Mid back pull ups is like the quintessential back exercise. On Thursday, I'll go do shoulders, which is exclusively shoulders, and I could put a little chest in that day too, just like it did on chest deck and put a little shoulders, but I'd do majority of the muscle group shoulders on shoulder Day, which is a

lot of a lot of military press straight up. And on Fridays the do arms, which is biceps and triceps. On Saturdays, I will do the exercise that I had to skip for whatever reason. If I to skip one of those, and if I get to do all six days, then I'll add a core kind of abs and a little bit more cardio. Since we have all been staying home, none of that's really changed. I just I either we put together a little gym in the Geee farm, and

so I'm either there or I could. You could do all of those things I just said at home, But to me, it helps to split those muscles up so I could hit chests like a ton of push ups and I can get as sore as I want and then it rest literally for six days until I hit it again. And for me, once again, I'm not a scientist, not a nutritionist, but that has been I've seen great results by splitting it up like that, and on top of all that sweating once a day. What's gotten there?

What we got next? What is the best way to support a musician? And it's a great question. I see it many times and I'll answer it a million times because I feel like it's important for musicians to for this fact to get out to anyone else, because a lot of people I talk to don't know this because it's changed over the years. For instance, we talked about Garth.

I use him as an example because he's sold so many millions of records that Garth really didn't need to do anything else besides make music and put out records. And that has changed dramatically now, as you know, the record business, selling records, selling songs is pretty much non existent now streaming songs has taken the place of that, and the money associated with streaming is tiny. It's fractions

of pennies. So if you stream one of my songs today, which I hope you do, it's it's fractions of pennies. Back to the artist, what matters number one, by far above everything else, hands down, doesn't matter if you're playing an open mic night or if you're in stadiums is going to see this artist at a live concert, Which is why the state of events in the world right now is so crippling to musicians because that has become our number one way to pay all the bills. Number one,

nothing even comes close. You cannot even compare anything close. And that especially applies to me because I've considered myself a mid level artist. I'm not a big headliner in an arena, but I'm not in the tiny bars anymore like I used to be for decades, and so that

put me right in the middle where we have. We still have a considerable amount of overhead and amount of crew and band to pay, but we're still not getting the the six figure digits or whatever that you get when you play, when you headline arenas, and so so if you want to support an artist is you've got to do the one thing that you can't do right now,

and that's go see a live concert. Now, if we did a streaming concert, which would be fun, and we should do that just because it's fun, but there's no way that could actually help pay bills. So and that goes with any other artists. You might be able to tip them. They might be able to make a couple hundred bucks. You know, that's awesome and every penny matters, but it's not going to pay for fourteen guys salaries and all the other expenses that go on with putting

on a live concert. That's okay, Well, you know we're going we're going to we're gonna make it. All of us are going to make it through this. You listening, We're all going to make it through this. We just have to look at it like we're hanging on monkey bars right now, and our knuckles are getting white and all the blood is rushing out of our arms, and you just got to hang on. You want to drop, you want to just let go and hit the ground,

but you just got to hang on. If you hang on just a little bit longer, we're gonna be okay, and that's how I feel. So the number one way you could support an artist is to go see a live concert, which is the one thing you can't do right now. Second best thing for me, literally is to watch these videos. Watch these videos, subscribe to the channel. If you haven't done that already, hit the subscribe on

the Granger channel, which is what this is on. Hit the subscribe on the Smiths and we'll just keep making videos. And that's very encouraging as we see that now we don't make we make pennies on YouTube as well, But like I said earlier, every penny counts right now. When will canceled shows have a rescheduled date? Another very common question, and I don't know. I don't know. It's fun to ask people, what's your take on this whole thing right now, this whole state of the world. When do you think

we're going to be back to normal? And no one really knows. I have rescheduled dates in I believe there's some at the end of May and some in the beginning of June. You know, I hope to God that those stay there, But I don't know. We could this whole thing could be the end of June or could be July, or god forbid, August or even later. My kids are out of school for the rest of the semester, so there's that. But I don't know. No one does. And I've talked to people in the highest people in

every book an agency. No one knows. Everyone's just asking. We just don't know. Next question, this is interesting after talking about money. Are you thinking about getting a new truck anytime soon? Well, regardless of if I'm playing concerts or not, I drive a two thousand and eight Chevy Silverado seven one pick up. I love that truck. It's what is it twelve years old now, and it drives great.

It's not a lemon, you know what I mean. When you can get a car or a truck and you just know a couple of months after you drive it around at home, you know it's a limon, Like this thing's going to mess up all the time. This truck's not a limit. It does great knock on woods. It just rarely lets me down in any way. I'm very comfortable with it. My dad drove in that truck with me, My son River was in that truck with me. I

have a lot of memories in that truck. I have absolutely no reason to ever let that truck go unless it just falls off its axles and totals itself. And God forbid I reckon in it some way like that. But no, I don't. I'm not the kind of guy that drives a new truck. Who and what was your first concert when you were younger? Sixteen years old? I went to see George Strait in Texas Stadium and Irving, Texas, and I was a member of his fan club, so

I stood in line. I spent the night at Texas Stadium months before with the rest of the fan club members and got up and I just literally slept on the concrete in a parking lot and got up that morning when they opened the ticket office and I got second row center in the stadium. It was incredible. It changed my life. Seeing the crowd and seeing the lights, and seeing the production and seeing all the bands that started at noon that day. It changed my life forever.

And I did it. I think I did an entire podcast about this, but it was a really big deal. It made me sitting there my little cowboy hat on, you know, a little skinny me. I was by myself, by the way, I remember thinking, I want to be a part of this circus, no matter what, no matter

what position. If I'm those guys up on the ladder hanging the lights, if I'm the sound guys, if I'm in the band, or you know, God willing, I'm the guy behind the microphone, I just want to do whatever it takes to be part of It just was so appealing to me. And I'm kind of a free spirit. I've always loved the idea of riding off into the sunset and roaming. That's always been me and that's that's that's really how I felt that day, So it was

It's a good question because that changed my life forever. Okay, well, it wouldn't be a true podcast if I didn't get kind of deep. And I'm gonna do that on this next one. All right, reposition for this one. I've read similar questions to this, and I need to keep reading them because I keep getting the question and they repeat over and over and over, and it means people are still asking the same question and I need to keep answering it. But it says this is a hard question

to answer. How do you move on from the death of a loved one and two things right off the bat. Two things come to my mind. One, you can't move on, and you know this. The person that asks this question you know this, and so I'm not blaming you. It's just we always like to correct each other on terminology here. But you don't move on, you move forward. You move forward with that memory of that person. Second thing that comes to my mind is there's no really right answer. Unfortunately.

The reason I know there's not a right answer is because I had two major losses in my life. There were see five years apart, passed away suddenly in twenty fourteen, and my son passed away in twenty nineteen. And I handled both of those very very different, both of them. You know, Dad was my hero, learned everything from him. We talked every day. We were so close. He was such a supporter of everything that I did. He was

a man that I wanted to be. And quick story about him, there's a million, but quick story about him is when we were going through his things after he passed. I've mentioned that we found the Ralph Waldo Emerson's success poem. I mentioned the the Teddy Roosevelt quote that I have on my arm. Dear mighty things, But One thing I

have mentioned is my parents. They lived on a ranch, cattle ranch in central Texas, and Dad held on to that place knowing that whenever he was going to retire, he could sell that ranch and use that money to support himself if he's in a nursing home, or if he died early, to take care of my mother. And that was always hard. That was a hard concept for us, the three boys, because we were like, oh, I ever want you to sell the ranch. You know, that's a

terrible retirement planned Dad. But that's the way he looked at it. He was just very He could just see things systematically like that, like I'll die here and then you'll take that you'll sell the ranch, and that'll provide money for the funeral. And well, he died a lot sooner than any of us had planned. But what we didn't know was he was so worried about that retirement plan he had that he was starting to apply for new jobs. So he was trying to build a little

job application. And here's the point of the story. The first sentence of that job application said I am a man of integrity, and then it went on to say things that he could do, the skills that he could do. And I was just like blown away by using that as an opening line to your resume, and I just thought,

what if, what if we could strive? What if success was striving for the ability to put on your resume, to start your resume with I am a man of integrity, knowing that that is the most important value you could offer to an employer or to the world world, and also believing those words. And I believed it when I read it because everyone that knew my dad felt that way about him. And it changed. It changed the way

I looked at life a little bit. And you know, when someone dies, you don't get to discuss something with him. So I never got to discuss hey, Dad, I never got to tell him that I saw your resume and I saw what you put and he would He is the kind of guy that probably would have shaken it off like it wasn't that big a deal, you know, But but the truth is that it is a big deal,

and that was my dad. That is just a small story about him, and there's many more, and I would like I'd love to tell him because you know, part of your question on how do you how do you move forward after losing a loved one. Part of it is telling their stories and keeping them with you and realizing that as you tell a story about a loved one and you really that that person actually lives inside of you in some strange way, and not not like some gypsy voodoo way. I mean, I mean you're part

of their DNA. You know, you're part. You have a genetic makeup that is similar. And sometimes I'll laugh, you know, and I'll and I'll think, oh my gosh, that was my dad laugh. That was my dad's laugh. Sometimes I will literally look down in my hand and I'll think, that looks like my dad's hand. Like my hand's starting to look like my dad's hand. You know, you always look at someone's hand and you could you could recognize the the way the wrinkles are, you know, and we

are so much a part of those people. And if you're not, if you're not in the same DNA, like for instance, if it's a spouse, then you could say very similar things. You could laugh like that person. You could say a joke in a certain kind of humor that you would have gotten only from your spouse or from your best friend. And then you realize, at that moment that they're still here, not physically here, but in

some kind of spiritual way, they're still here. And then if you're a Christian, you believe that they are living forever in a beautiful place for eternity, and that we will meet again. We'll see him again. And you know, that's the first thing I thought of after Dad was I can't wait to see him again, and I know I will, and I can't wait to catch him up on everything. I grieved very differently with River, because with Dad, I would dive into pictures and videos and I would

soak up as much of him as I could. And with River, it was difficult to look at any pictures, it was difficult to watch any videos, or hear his little voice or hear his little laugh. It's very difficult, and it still is to this day. I have to kind of prepare myself. And Amber will even tell me, like, Hey, I'm going to watch a River video. Then I'll have to prepare myself for what I'm about to hear, because it could just hit me like a like a freight

train if I hear that little voice again. And I think, all in all, these two losses that I had that were just like monumental losses for me and my personal journey. These two men, the oldest and the youngest of the

men that I loved, I've learned. I've learned that keeping them with you, telling stories about them, sometimes looking at pictures or not, but carrying that with you, carrying that not like it's a weight, not like it's a ball and chain, but carrying that spirit with you, carrying that soul, carrying that smile and that laughter and that sparkle in their eye. That's how you move forward. That's how you

keep them with you. And you realize that everything that happens in your life moving forward, that many of those things are a result of the loss, and it turns into so much more glory. It turns into so much more love and beauty. And that's a magical thing. It's a beautiful thing. I don't think I could answer another

question after that. After that, but thank you guys for listening, so much love for each and every one of you, all for even caring to go if you're still with me, you're even caring to go thirty minutes with me on something like this. But I will see you every Monday in this same exact format. Amber every Sunday, Smith's, Tuesday, Thursdays, Granger and earldible stuff in between all that, We'll see you guys soon. Thanks for listening, ye ye