STUCK (life not mud)

sometimes you could think is never going to end. And I have been with him through this, watching this go down, and it's been it's been groose them watching it happen happen, and I wanted to I wanted to talk about today because not only is it relevant for that situation, but it's relevant for a lot of people that feel stuck.

You feel stuck right now? Do you feel like you can't move forward with whatever you're dealing with, or it feels like the light at the end of tunnel is so far away it feels like you're never gonna get there. I mean, you could look at it and say, I have seventy two months of this before I could ever see something normal. Maybe you're just thinking about the state of the world today. Maybe you're just thinking that things aren't going to be normal until this happens. And I

don't think I could wait that long. You're gonna want to listen to this podcast. We're going to hit on all those things, and I think it's really important to talk about and spread that kind of message. I do want to give a few shout outs before we start, before we roll that intro. This is the shout outs. If you have a question or a shout out, email

Granger Smith Podcast gmail dot com. This first shout out goes to Hayden, Lancaster, Thank you for listening, Buddy, Dustin Kaufman from Lancaster, p A. He likes by Boy Baseball. Thank you, Dustin Herman P N R. From South Africa. P I E N A A R. Shout out to South Africa, Thank you Herman. Cheyenne Nelson shout out to you. I appreciate you so much. From Concordia, Kansas. Mitch Kajar Mitch, shout out to you, Buddy, thank you for listening. And Steven Poke Hulk P A C H O L K E.

What is my problem? With pronouncing names today. Shout out to Stephen, Thank you so much. You're from Grain Valley, Missouri. I appreciate you guys so much. This podcast means a lot to me because it's putting content into the world that I I feel like could help people, could be meaningful, could give someone a purpose. Could someone could take just a little sliver of something that we say and apply it to make something in their life a little bit better.

Then imagine that concept of a lot of people making something tiny in their life a little bit better. That adds up to a lot of good for this world. Thank you for listening. This is episode sixty five. Roll that intro. Yee yee did chance in DC longline five? Fool up and down going back rangey co yeah yoution. So I have Kayla back with me. There's actually two weeks in a row for you. Two weeks. You're you're

a regular. I like you. You're my sidekick, and you have good stories, and you you have I don't know, you're just one of my best friends. And you you're so resilient. You're like a ping pong ball. You just keep bouncing back and sometimes you don't think you're bouncing, but I know you're bounding like, Man, you got this. And yesterday I was leaving the farm and you driving in and I was driving out. I pulled over, rolled the window down. You rolled your window down, and there

was something very different about you yesterday. Yep, something different specifically about your vehicle yesterday. Yes, you had a lot of apparatus that was previously there that was now gone. So I said, man, wa, I got to get you on the podcast. We got to talk about this because I think it's a message that a lot of people could hear. And the people on this podcast, I'm always blown away with the diversity not only geographically that listen,

but the diversity of age. I all get shout outs from people that are thirteen years old and seventy five years old. Yeah, it's so, it's crazy, and so that when I hear a story like yours, Yes, I think we got to get that other podcast because it's a story of hope. It's a story of not only overcoming adversity, but overcome you know, like you put you close the book of that piece of adversity. And what I'm talking about is several episodes of this podcast ago I had

you on here and we talked about your journey. Your journey not only with me as my old drummer now you're the warehouse manager here at EE Apparel, but your journey that you've had. You've had a mountain, I could say that because you're from Colorado. Yeah, you've climbed mountains in your life, and you always seem to make it over the mountains and get to the other side, even though it might not seem like it on your way up.

Never does this latest mountain that you have now cressed, is you've your car is now clear of the what what's it called. It's called the ignition interlock device. Some of you out there will be familiar with it, at

least a handful of you. Yes, Unfortunately, there was the ignition interlock device on there as a result they do that as a result of d U S, d W I, S Y. You got a A W or you on those last one I think it was a U. So you got different Some different states do them different, and you got a d U I And it was from craziness that had happened. That was you know, that was

the result of it. And it's been years, Yeah, it's been years, and so I wanted to bring you on here because it's there's there's people that they could have struggled with something in their life. They could have they've could have gotten a d U I or a d W I or something worse. And then you get you get plunged into this turmoil of remorse and regret and repentance and recourse and a lot of other things to start with red and and you look at it like, there's no way I'm going to get through this this

probation time or you can't. You can't do this and this and this and this and this, and you got to get into your car and literally breathe into this plastic tube and with a camera to tiny camera for years looking at you for three years. Yeah, it's it's

the whole the whole process is just is unbelievable. I will say, on the outset of what I'm about to say, none of that would have happened if I wouldn't have given them a reason to, you know, to arrest you too, for you to get in trouble, because if they pull you over and you've got nothing going on, well then they just kind of let you go. But unfortunately they gave him you know reason to do that. And uh, you know, some people, some people get pulled over, some

people don't. I typically will get pulled over or I will get I have like anti lottery luck. It's a but I'm about to start defensive driving me myself too. So and and I got to add to what you're saying that, you know, we got to thank goodness that those those those kind of drastic measures go in place to discourage drinking and driving because of the damage far

worse than a dw I that it can cause. So yeah, not neither one of us are talking about how that's a pain, because that needs to be in place as a pain, as a huge roadblock. But what we're no, we're not talking about that. We're talking about you were faced with that and you did it, and you didn't break your probation and you did nothing else happened during

the time. And so now that your car is clean, Yeah, so now you could take where you are now in your life and you could rewind ten years and go, man, you you really have a fresh start now that you might not have seen coming. That you might not have you probably doubted yourself that you could even have this clean And this is this clean of a slate as

I've probably ever known you to have. Yeah, that my perspective on everything's a little different, and I'm grateful for, you know, to be able to just kind of restart everything. And I'm definitely a little wiser. I think this is supposed to This is what all this is set up

to do. Is it just kind of let you know, hey, you know, you know, start start doing things different, start thinking different, start making different decisions, and stop being so reckless and kind of you know, you know, just go go about things a little differently. Then you think that you did right. Yeah. I mean when they you know, when they the rest you and and they tell you're on probation they're like, you can't do this or that for two years, and it's like, okay, I'm not going

to do it. I know there are lots of people who have, you know, difficulty during probation stuff like that. I didn't you know, just do whatever they tell you to do. But there there are some people who have a massive problems. I remember probation officer for telling me that people would show up drunk to their probation meeting. I I don't know what makes you think you're not get caught, but it does feel like you are. It does feel like you're never going to get over that,

because there's always one thing that follows. You know. The best way to describe going through probation is they chop you off at the knees and then they tell you to run. It's like, well, now I can't. I can't do this because you took that away. But you expect me to do this, you know, like you need to be able to go to work and be employed and show up to all these meetings immediately after they suspend your license and say, wow, am I going to make

it to the meetings? And how am I going to do all these classes and go do community service and all that? You took my license away? If you've done it out, yeah, I used to. I used to look at people who were in the system, the criminal justice system, who said it's hard to get out, and I would say, no, you're just lazy, or you don't care to get out, or you don't want to get out, or you're just used to it. And now I look at it a little differently and that it is a little bit harder.

It's just harder, you know, to jump through all those hoops. It's harder than it looks. You know, that doesn't look like it's that hard from the outside, but once you're in, it's just a little bit harder to do. But to just kind of put one foot in front of the other is the only thing you can do. They say, keep doing the next right thing, and that's all you can do. The next right thing. That's awesome. Just keep doing the next right thing, Keep doing the next right thing.

I don't think of every you always have little pieces that I've never heard you say that. They're like just good pieces of life advice you could take and apply to any person. The next right thing. It's not now, it's easier to mess up, but it's a guideline if you ever go, well, what should I do the next right thing? Which one is that? It's you could always tell yeah, you know, yeah, like what's the next right thing. You wake up in the morning, Well, get up, get dressed.

What's the next right thing? After that, we'll go to work. What's the next right thing? Do my job? What's the next right thing? You know? Just keep doing the next right thing? Yeah, go home, what's the next right thing? Not doing the next wrong thing. You know, what's the next right thing. Go ahead and have a couple of beers with people. No, not really, No, that's not the right thing. So do the next right thing. So keep doing the next right thing, and you'll get through it.

And it's a season. We talked about this about how life is seasonal, and that's important to remember in anything. But it's a season that will pass. It doesn't feel like it's going to pass, because sometimes it could take years for you to get through whatever difficulty you put yourself in or or you found yourself in. But life is seasonal, you know, just that summer will come rolling around again, Winter will come rolling around again. You're not

constantly going to be in this season that you're living in. Yeah, even if it's a good season, you think this is great, I'm just gonna hold right here. And life always changes on you. You could go back to your hometown. You can try to go back to your old your favorite burger joint it's probably gone, yeah, or change names, or the burger doesn't taste the same anymore because those new owner. Things like that, even those tiny things like that. But it constantly is a turnover and you have to learn

to readapt to the present. You can never chase the past, and you certainly can't put things in place that you think are the future. So what there's people listening right now? I would assume a lot of people listening right now they're kind of stuck in a place where either they're mentally stuck or they're legally stuck like you were, where you know, they're literally breathing into a plastic tube every time they try to start their engine of the car.

They're working out like you worked out with your wife for years, you're driving situation like who's going to take the car? Or am I going to drive? You need to drive? Who do you have to? I can't but I can't drive because of this? And then and she has to take the car. That is a mess that you guys had to work out for three years. Yeah, and she's she's an angel. Without her, it would have

been significantly harder, probably impossible. But it just yeah, that was really that was a really rough time trying to figure out how that goes. Which brings up a point that is it it doesn't just affect you, you know what I mean, it affects everybody. Then your kids got to get in the car and you have to explain to your kids why in the world you have to, you know, do that to get the car started. But I will in the way I go about doing any of my mistakes, which there have been a lot of,

is just be upfront with it. You know. I told the kids, this is what happens when you make a mistake. This is what happens when you you know, when you do this wrong, do that, everything has consequences. This is exactly what you're going to get, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. This is what happens. I don't think there's another way to go around to go about it than just being upfront with it. But yeah, it's definitely a tricky. So if you're speaking to them, the people

listening right now, I didn't really ask that. I didn't really set that up right. But if the people that are listening that are stuck either mentally or legally or physically, and you look at three year timeframe and you look at that mountain, you go, I'd rather just quit. I'd rather just not do anything than to try to do this for three years, just to maybe have a normal life at the end of the tunnel. What do you say to those people that are stuck? Well, you're getting

to you're just you know, like it's a season. You know, if you look at if you're haven't even gone to your core date or you know, it just happened, you know, there might be one person out there who just got arrested two nights ago or something like that. No matter what the situation is, you're looking at a long span

of time. To you, what looks like a long span of time, and when you look back on it, it's you just have to go do that next right thing, text, take the next step, you know, do your best, and you can look at it this way is it might look like a long time. Three years looks like a long time, or four years looks like a long time. But I mean, do you have what was junior high? Like? What was high school? Like? I mean you got through that, that was three years, that was four years, you know,

I mean do you remember junior high? I mean it seems like a brief period of time in your life right now looking back, it's like, oh, junior high was nothing. Well this is going to be as long as junior high, you know, only you don't have to go to you'll have to go to classes. Sound like Junia High. Let me go. Let me make that even more specific and go to a question from a listener. Uh this This question comes from Kevin and he emailed Grangersmith podcast at

gmail dot com. It says, Hey, Granger loved the podcast and the Smith channel. My name is Kevin. I'm a YouTube listener and watcher from Cincinnati, Ohio. I wanted to write in and ask how do I overcome the stuck feeling at a job? Have you ever had to figure out how to get over the monotony of a day to day job that always feels like you're going nowhere. Currently, I'm working at a power plant that will be shutting down in the next five to seven years, and I

just struggle figuring out the next step. I have a wife and four kids to support, so I feel like I have to stay at this current job and never get to take a leap into a new one. With the struggle of bills or to make sure I have health insurance, etc. But always hopeful that I'll find the next a new job that's right that I can apply for. Hopefully you can give me some advice on this issue. So there's the stuck issue coming from Kevin and Cincinnati.

That's very specific to his job at a power plant that's probably closing down in the next five to seven years and he pretty much hates it. What do you say to Kevin, where's that five to seven year period that's like junior high? You know, yeah, you know, like eventually this is going to end, but it's not super happy about being there. I would say is if you start making some moves, you know now to where it's

gonna make that five seven years shorter. You'll be doing things like try and start to find somewhere else to try and start now trying to look for someone in some other place to work at, and don't do it obviously the last minute, because that's gonna make that last year absolutely awful. And then it'll give you something to focus on instead of focusing on the job that you absolutely hate, don't like doing, or is eventually going to end.

You'll start to focus on that next step that you're gonna make, that next season that you're going to walk into, and it'll make that season bearable. You know a lot of people, if you hate winner, you're not just gonna sit there and think about winter all the time. You're going to plan a spring break or something like that, or you know, you don't just sit there and think about the horrible thing you're dealing with, Try and think

about something you know new. So I would start planning right now for that next job and then not focus will help keep you through that job. You're going to get something better than the one you have right now, but only you know, only if you're out there doing it. Do the next right thing. If you know that your job is going to end the next five to seven years, the next right thing for you to do would be look for something else, something better, and then set your

goals higher. You know, nothing changes if nothing changes. So your situation with your job that you're not happy with right now, nothing's going to change. If your attitude doesn't change towards that job, nothing changes, if nothing changes. If you go I deserve a better job. My kids deserve me to be happy, not just coming home from this job that I absolutely hate. So I'm going to find

a job that I like. I remember driving around doing electrical work and I needed benefits, and I just remember seeing a Brink's armored car truck drive by and was like, that'd be a cool job if I could ever get that job. And I ordinarily might not have said I could have that job, but I was like, well, I don't know. It was the supply. So it's called and applied and got the job. I mean, because nothing would

have changed if I hadn't changed my attitude. So right there, I changed my attitude and said I'm just gonna call and then they were like, yeah, we're hiring, so I worked there. Yeah. I think this question is there's two parts that I want to say to you, Kevin. One is exactly what Caleb's saying. You can start today, Start right now, as soon as you hear this podcast. Start on the job search. And the job search comes in

a couple different ways. It either comes by what Caleb said, he saw that Brinks armored truck drive by and he thought that's something I could do. I'll apply, So that comes with an application, or it comes with you educating yourself for something else, whether that means you're reading a book, you're literally researching on YouTube, or you're actually getting some

kind of tech schooling. But you have to make that investment today, and it's going to cause you to have less sleep, a little less leisure time because you're going to be doing your power plant job and either early in the morning is your new reading for your research time, or you're applying for jobs, or after you get off from the power plant, you're spending at least an hour starting today and then every day from now on investing in this research or application or job search or schooling,

and that motivation should trickle into every other piece of your life. You're not going to feel less because instead of feeling stuck, you're hunting, and hunting is a lot different than turning spin your wheels because you don't feel stuck if you're hunting. So it's like I'm not going anywhere. You'll think, well, I am going somewhere, I just haven't found it yet. And there's a big difference in that feeling.

And then the second, the second piece of what I feel like I need to say is that there's a couple of different groups of people in this world. Monks are one of them, Navy seals or another. And it's interesting because I read this book by Jesse Itzler called Living with a Monk and Living with a Seal, So he did both of these groups of people, and he will go with them for like thirty days and just absorb what you could learn from a monk or from

a navy seal. And it's funny because when I read those two books, then I started the little pieces sorted coming into my daily life. For instance, I take off a shirt and I I put it on a hanger, and I put it in a closet and it's kind of wrinkled, and it's like falls it. You put it on the in the closet and it slips off the hanger and falls to the ground. And sometimes my reaction is, ah, I get it later, Just walk just walk out of the closet, walk away, which is right now. My closet

right now is in an RV. It's actually the bathroom of an RV. That's my current closet. So I walk away. But then there's a little thought that comes to my head and says, when a navy seal will walk away, or what a monk walk away? And so I literally will turn around and I'll get that little shirt that's slipped off on the ground. Then I'll put it back on a hanger and I'll shake it out, shake the wrinkles out, and I'll put it back on the rack on its hanger, and then and I straighten it and

then I look, I go. Now that's what a monk will do, or that's what a Navy seal will do, and then I leave. And if you could apply that mentality and to all these little pieces of your life, especially your power play job, like you wake up one morning on a Monday morning ago, I'm going into work to a job I hate, but I'm gonna I'm gonna do so good today. I'm gonna do a perfect job today. I'm gonna go in to this power plant like I'm a monk, and like these monasteries where monks live currently,

they always have jobs. It could be it could be like the one with Jesse Hitzler in the book. They were dog trainers, so they train like seeing eye dogs and military dogs and it's all German short German shepherds. And they could go in and then there's a guy that does laundry, and then there are the guys that cleaned the bathrooms. Then they're guys that does that cooks the food. But everything they do is when they make up their bed to when they brush their teeth is perfect.

There is no time limit on it. They just do it perfectly. And then it's so interesting to think about applying a monk's life or a Navy seals life into your everyday life and watch it eliminate that feeling of being stuck. Because when you start mastering the monotonous, you become the king of the monotonous. And then it's no longer monotonous. You're now the king of something. You're the master of something. It's not the master of you anymore.

Do you walk away from the powerplant and you go, dude, I just had a perfect day. I crushed this day. Everything I did, I did perfect. There's a couple of things I tried to cut corners on. I went back and I did it perfect. And it doesn't matter if your boss notices you or not, or if your colleagues your peers notice you. Doesn't even matter. You get back in your car to go home knowing you're the master of that day. And that's huge and crushing. The feeling

of being stuck. Yeah, it's true. And just that piece of knowing that you did you know, you said that you did the best that you could for that. Yeah. And the humility, I think it takes a good amount of humility to go about life that way, which if you're if you have the humility to if you're humble enough to go into a situation where it's like I'm just gonna nobody's gonna see it, but I'm just gonna do it, you know, the best I possibly can. Your

attitude will get better and it'll get noticed too. Yeah, I would say this, Kevin, here's my mission for you. Start with sixty seconds. And it sounds crazy, but set an alarm on your phone for sixty seconds and say, art today, I'm gonna for sixty seconds, I'm gonna think about a new job, a new position, a new way to search out and apply for a new job. And set your timer and hit go, and sixty seconds is gonna go off, and you're gonna go, well, dang, that

was that was quick. I didn't even get a really chance to think about it. But stop and move on. And the next day, set it for one hundred and twenty seconds. The next day, come in and go all right, I'm gonna give themself five minutes. So you're gradually you're not just saying all right, must spend two hours a day looking for a new job, because you're gonna get bored. Yeah, doing that, you're gonna drive yourself and your brain's gonna go no, I can't do this. You get less time

and be more frustrated. Exactly, less done, more frustrated. So instead, give your work your way up to like a ten minute week where each day you're spending ten minutes on this new job, and then see if you can get up to thirty minutes. And then maybe in a month you can spend an hour a day. Don't start at

an hour, start at one minute. And so if you could do those two things where you're dedicating a certain amount of time every day to your new job, your new search, or your re education, and then you go back to your power plant and you treat that power plant like you're a monk and a monastery. I promise you you're gonna alleviate that stuck feeling and take a break to bear it back. Thank you guys for listening to the podcast. This one is brought to you by

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My favorite pocketknafe to carry is almost always a Kershaw and this one we both have someone because you bought this for me for my birthday. My brother Jordan got me this and it is First off, it's the uh we have the same one month's black art there news's chrome. Oh no, might've just been worn out. Oh yeah, same exact model, the eight c R one three m o V. This is not paid for by Kershaw. No, it's just a really good n This is awesome. So it I carry this one. I like the knuckle stop. Should I

have to need a knuckle stop. It also has a quarter inch nut driver, small ruler. It's got two flat tip screwdriver tips that you put into your quarters magnetically hooks all. Yeah, and this thing. I use this for everything so much so to everybody always knows that I have it on me. Actually it's the truck giveaway. When one of the Covert guys came and said, you have a screwdriver, I had one on me. He goes, I just needed to change license plates, and I said, well,

you might need a bigger screwdriver. And I pulled out my pocket knife like this. I said, here's here's a bigger Phillips tip and he was like, yeah, that'll work perfect. Where'd you get that knife? And I told him where it was. So this is the one I carry on me all the time because I can always the stuff

that I do at the warehouse. Sometimes I'll be doing fiddling with electrical or need a Phillips tip or putting this together, putting that together, and there's just there's like a thousand different things you can do this with this. So the Kershaw assisted opening ones are awesome, But this thing I do like a thousand different things with and that got you that because I just use it all

the time. I have a couple other Kershaw's too that I have struggled because occasionally I won't know where this one is and then I'll grab the other one off off my desk. The command Kershaw really is benefiting from this. They really didn't pay us a penny to say all this. I will say that if you haven't assisted opening one, I've I've had like four or five of them. And if you're spring breaks, you call them and they just ship it to you for free. Have you ever done that?

They're so cool, they just they're yeah, nobody's getting paid for this. They just have really good They just take care of you. And they're pretty reasonably priced too. Yeah, like they're not going to break the bank. But it's

a solid, solid knife. My grandfather on my dad's side always carried a pocket knife, but he had those old timy ones that that have like the uh, the wood on the side, and they're like impossible to open if they're if you don't keep it oiled, you have to get your fingernail in that little groove and pull it, and so he would lose it all the time. So it was like the joke of the family was at Christmas time, every person in the family would get him

one of those. So for Christmas he'd get like seventeen of them, and that by the end of the year he would have lost all seventeen. I like that. I love redundancy because you never know and stuff like that's gonna happen. Well, if he if he would have had a curse, he could have opened the I know, I thought of it. That's what I started saying that because it's like, man, if Paul had had one of these,

I whant to changed the game for him. Those things are terrible, but I still have When he died, we each got like his latest inventory, like the grandkids, so I have one from him. Do they all collect eventually? Like so you found them? They were just lost. Well, at least we found the current inventory. The other ones just went into the endless pit that his knives fell into. I'm gonna read another question. This is says hey Grainew. My name is Nick. I live in a small town

in Sweden called Scovde Skovdeled. I've been listening to buy Boy Baseball over and over. My own father wasn't present during my formative years, and I've basically had to teach

myself how to be a good man. I'm now twenty seven years old, and even though I have children on my own, there's still a bit away, and I've thought about what kind of father I've let me read that again, I'm twenty seven years old, and even though having my own children is still a bit away, so he doesn't have them yet, I've thought about what kind of I've want to be. Listening to By Boy Baseball has put so many emotions into words for me and gave me goosebumps.

I now know what kind of father I want to be and what kind of example I want to set for my future children. Thank you so much and everyone involved in making this song. So that's I guess this is kind of a shout out, and so thank you Nick. Thanks for listening from Sweden. As I was reading that, I could almost hear your accent. Here's your typing this, So I appreciate you, buddy, And here's to be in twenty seven still being single and with no kids. That's awesome.

Hang in there. You got about three more years hanging there. I always think thirties are a good age to have kids to start thinking about that. Unless you are kids, then forty fifty, Yeah, sixty, just don't do it. Yeah, here's a question from Tim, and this is interesting and you probably help with this, Kala, but says hey Grangeer, I hope you guys are having a great holiday season. We've constantly got you streaming throughout our office in Auburn, Alabama,

and it dawned on us. How do you guys get weather forecast and make plans when weather becomes an issue both on the road and at the farm. Thanks so much. PS, if you need a company watching your back, let us know, because Tim works for AWIS Weather Services in Auburn, Alabama. So we're Caleb. Were you in the band when Frank Maglan, our audio engineer, was like heading up weather services for us? Or did he take that on after years? That problem

was probably after me. It's funny because our old audio engineer took on like his own division of our production staff as a weather analyst, and he would study the weather before we laughed for a tour, and then we had a special groutiny you're laughing this is serious. I can just see. Okay, so there's high pressure. Yeah yeah, I was like that. So here you go, all right,

guys on Friday, That's how Frank talked. All right, guys and Friday, des Moines, Iowa supposed to be clear skies sixty degrees that evening, a low pressure system will be moving in about the time were loading the trailer. We should get a little precipitation, so bring your raincoat and a sweater. The next day we will be heading into Lincoln, Nebraska, should be overcast skies with a thirty chance of rain,

high of fifty three degrees. God, what should see? And it was so funny because we would actually go by that and be like, you know if because when you're on the road, and Tim, Tim has a good point, because when you travel it's far and as much as we did before COVID, you easily could end up in a really different weather system than you thought you would be. For instance, it could be August and you're touring in the up of Michigan and it's going to get down

to thirty at night, and you're completely unprepared. So eventually our buses just got completely stocked with every kind of weather gear, whether it was rain or beanies and gloves and jackets. But then to answer your question, tim it evolved into like the bus driver job. The bus drivers took on being aware of weather because they needed to know what they were driving through. And the key times that we really had to look at usually was load

in and load out and showtime. So if it was an outdoor show, we always had to pay attention to show time, but always we had to pay attention to load out time, which is, say it's midnight to one am, what's happening at the loading dock or the back door of the venue, and do we need to push that

load earlier or later because of a storm. And we have dealt with this, like in the summer touring season, like during festival season, whether it's always a really big deal because it's we're constantly bringing tarps and the guys will put saran wrap around their guitar pedal boards because we play no matter what, we play in rain or shine, if it's an not door festival. The only time we don't play is if it's high winds and the stages

in danger, or if it's lightning. But if it's just just rain, we're going to play unless for some reason the promoter has a reason to call it off. But we can't personally call it off because we're contracted to play. They're not gonna pay us if we say we're going out there because it's raining. So we've had we've had countless hundreds hundreds of stories of iffy weather conditions. Do you remember any of them in the van days? I remember stuff got blown down. We were like a festival

and it was a tent but around the Houston area. Yeah, yeah, blew down on us when we were inside of it. But a massive tit. I mean that sucker was massive. But that was that was the only one that I remember, And that and the entire tit went down. We didn't have weather man Frank at that or he wasn't weatherman at that point, which I still trying to envision him. Yeah, giving the forecast so awesome question, Tim forecast. Thank you for asking a question that no one would have thought

to ask. But besides the weather man, and it is just like you suspected, Tim, it's a big deal for driving, it's a big deal for show playing the show, and it's a big deal for carrying gear through the show, and it just it's all over the map on how that changes. I'm gonna do one more cool, all right? This question is from John without an h says, Hey, Grangeer, my name is John. I've been a fan of yours for years, and I love the music and the content you put out and find myself relating to you in

many ways. This has been a crazy year and one many people have struggled to agree on. I agree with taking precautions or relation to COVID nineteen, but not shutting down your whole life to avoid the chance of getting it Right here we go, enjoy life to the fullest while you can, on the chance the virus or the multitude of other things might happen tomorrow, it says, might be happened. I do my best to read these emails words verbatim, but sometimes it's it's hard. Yeah, sometimes they

trip me up. I've heard you speak about child safety, and this is an issue you feel strongly about that others may not. My question is how do you factor that into considering other strong feelings towards precautions quarantine because of the loss of their family due to COVID nineteen. John, I think I kind of understand what he's saying. Yeah,

and let me go back. He says, I agree with taking precautions in relation to COVID nineteen, but not with shutting down your whole life to avoid the chance of getting it. And so maybe he's struggling with some friends who are thinking against that, which is why he's saying, how do you deal with an issue that you feel strongly towards it? Others may not? It's crazy. I don't really get that question too often, but it's surprising that

it don't get it every question these days. Yeah, it's interesting that more people don't ask you that, especially as a touring musician and travel such a party to life. Yeah, I don't. I don't deal with this too much, John, because the this whole stuff, this whole virus thing, I'm just over it. I'm completely over it. And I don't put hope in twenty twenty one. I don't put hope in the vaccine. I don't put hope in a new president. I don't put hope in a find a medical advisor.

I put hope in God. And there's so much there's so much grace given when you just finally give up trying to put hope in man, and don't hear me wrong, and saying that just means it means I don't care and I'm just gonna live my life the way I want to live it. That's not exactly what I'm saying. I'm just saying I'm not going to I'm not going to stress and destroy myself because I'm worried about other people in humanity holding up to something I believe in.

So this question is not And your subject line is relatability, and I just I'm over it. And you see me, you see me. Deal with this year, you see me? You know, start with where everyone was scared at the beginning, and I say this year. I'm talking about twenty twenty one now, but the beginning of the shutdown, YEA, everybody believed it in them. Not that you don't believe it. It's believable. It's a virus. People are catching it, people are dying from it. Yeah, it was. It was initially

a whole lot. I mean I'll no, no, go ahead, go ahead. I mean I've really And that's kind of my answer. I'm early over it. I We're all gonna die at some point, and as adults, that's our responsibility as children. We want to talk about children here, that's not their responsibility, that's ours. So that's why we do everything we can and precautions and we we make sure everything is it's right when it comes to child safety.

But when it comes to adults and we're in trying to work for a living and someone wants to take the most extreme measures for a virus, that's totally up to them, and I'm not ever going to argue. We went to an ice cream place the other day with me and Hamber and the kids, and the lady said, and I'm not really, I'm not really anti mask and I'm not really and I'm kind of right in between. Yeah, and so I literally just forgot to put it on.

But we went into this ice cream place and she said, do you mind, do you just mind putting on your mask because we're really struggling, This company's really struggling, and and the city will find us fifteen hundred dollars if they catch someone in here without a mask. That's ridiculous. And do you know I'm not gonna look her in the eye and say, well, then I'll be taking my

business elsewhere. You know, Yeah, you just you want to that place and doing a favor, you know, just trying to find said yeah, I said Tom, I said, that's my fault, and I forgot about it and I just pulled up my little gator above my face and I didn't I didn't think I was anti patriotic for that or you know, I'm just, uh, I'm just kind of

numb on the whole thing. I think everybody's getting more numbs, especially with all the the I mean, you just looked at the leadership of the all the all the all the politicians who are telling you to do one thing and they're doing another. I mean, as soon as they start doing another that I'm nobody's going to follow. I mean, that's how serious. That's how serious the whole situation is. Is the people telling you that it's this serious and we need to do all these different things are doing

different things than that. And we got it. What is a certain politician for for the city of Austin issued a you should stay at home order from Mexico. That's how should not go anywhere where are you I'm in Mexico. It was absolutely ridiculous from our mayor in Austin, Texas, not our he's the city over. We're in Georgetown, and the mayor of Austin telling everybody to stay home from a video that he recorded in Mexico on vacation at his daughter's large the attend wedding. What do you what

do you want? Yeah, well it was it was a wedding, it was already planned. Well, everybody else has other stuff planned. If you're not going to take it that serious, you know, we don't need to take it that serious. Kevin Neson said, you guys should know no dying. You guys just need to cancel this, cancel that. Well, then he goes to Napa vel and has dinner. We will take it as serious as you do. Yeah, I mean I'm not I'm

not gonna take it more serious than you do. And I'm not going to I'm not going to take a stance on this podcast that's too far from what people have already said a million times. It's like, if you feel like you have some kind of pre existing conditions, stay home, absolutely, stay home. Yeah, and if you know that you might have it, I don't think you need to be like you said. It's not like this draw line in the sand. I will not wear a mask

at any point. Well, that's just yeah, that's I mean, if you have someone that you love who is you know, compromise compromised, then don't go around them. And then it's just if if people applied to compassion to this situation a little more, then that would work kind of work itself out. If you're if you're at risk, don't go out and do stuff. And if you you know, if you're not at risk, you know, just go about your life. What happened to free choice? There's another story and Chipotle

down the road. I was getting a burrito and Chipotle is pretty pretty mask heavy. You know, they want they want you to wear a mask. And it's the same thing like the city is going to find you. And so you can't totally blame the individual's business that that's under threat of getting the fine. You blame the city, but not the business. So I went to go get a burrito and they asked me to please put my mask on. So I put it on, got my burrito, left and Bull was like, where'd you go for lunch?

That's my bus driver, Bull love him. He said, where'd you go for lunch? I said, chipotlet and go they make you wear a mask. I said yeah, and he said did you put it on? I said yeah, and he goes, huh, you just did what they said. Yeah, I wanted to breed. Oh he said, So if they came to your house tomorrow and said I want all your guns, you just say okay, because that's that's what

they tell you. Like, well, I don't. That's the problem with ideology is you go, you go all the way down one road, and you can't turn back on one road. One solid ideology. It gets very dangerous when you try to apply it to everything else in your life. I think that's the I think the it's natural. I think it's extremely uh embedded in the American that if someone goes, you know, this thing's dangerous, masks are probably a good idea,

Like sounds pretty reasonable. But when someone goes you have to wear a mask or else, we're like, yeah, I don't think I'm gonna wear a mask. Yeah, it's just an American you know. Yeah, we've been doing that since we were throwing tea in the harbor. It's just you know, if you ask us, it's very yeah, but if you just tell me to or else, then I'm like, not all of a sudden, don't feel like wearing this just yeah.

And I'm also an at the point where I'm going to look an old, older lady in the eye that owns a little small mom and pop ice cream shop, and she says, can you can you please put that on? Just because if someone sees me, I could I can get fine, And I'm already hanging on just as it is. I'm not gonna look at her and go no, yeah, no, give you my ice cream, keep your you keep your two dollars and thirty cent ice cream woman, Yeah, not me.

Instead I just go, yeah, yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am, And I give her the money for the ice cream, and me and the kids leave. That doesn't seem that that big a deal to me. No, you know, like if if you were to go visit somebody who has a family member who's you know who who could get sick very quickly and not survive code you know, for whatever reason, you know, just just do it. It's it's the when that oh we went we went to eat to dinner. This is the one that's ridiculous. We went to eat me,

how do you want to eat? And uh, we're walking outdoor. You walk up to where they sign you in and uh, and then you go there's a door into the restaurant. Well, only from standing outside the door to inside the restaurant, did I have to wear my mask? Hmm? All of five feet one door? And then I could take my mask off. And it's at that point where I'm like, I did nothing to protect myself from So there's there's things where there's reasonable to do it around people who

were That's just where. And it goes back to if you if you want to go eat, go eat and don't wear a mask. No I'm not. I'm not into going to get into the science. And I hate that word now, like I hate the word science and I hate the word virologist. I hate those words because some everyone goes, oh, you know science, now you know you know virology? No I don't. I don't. Well have a friend.

Everybody knows a friend, and so as a virologist, it doesn't make sense to my small brain that a little piece of cloth around my face and those would stop the virus. It doesn't totally make sense to me. So in my opinion, if I was worried about it, or I knew someone that was susceptible to it. I would not be around them, or I would stay home. That's the best way. That's the best way to not get it, if you don't leave the house or don't go to

someone else's house that is sensitive to it. But going to the restaurant and wearing a tiny piece of cloth on your face when you walk in the door and then taking that tiny piece of cloth off when you sit down. And I'm just preaching to the choir here, and there's people I'm suspecting that people listening to this are split about fifty to fifty. Some people are like one hundred percent mask, and then there's probably people that are like one hundred percent no mask, and then both

of those probably overlap to guys like me. That's like, you know what, that's uh, I'm over it, I'm over it, off, I'm over I've seen that. Was it the football games where like the band has masks that split in the middle so they can play the trumpet. Mm hmm, yeah, that's that was Texas A and M. My album Alma Mater is absolutely ridiculous. And this just in case you're getting your keyboards ready to start putting hate on me, because when you take a neutral position, like a little

bit like I am. That's all people are going to want to do is hate because there's going to be people that say I need to advocate for only one side or the other, or I'm wrong because it's that old Aaron Tippins song you got the stand for something or you'll fall for anything. And once again, that's an ideology that can get dangerous. That kind of mentality can get dangerous. And here's what I'm saying on me sum everything up. I'm not worried about it because I don't

trust man kind. I put my faith in God. I put my faith in the Almighty, the Creator, who I find peace from who I get grace, and I am better mentally, maybe better physically, I don't know. I'm definitely better mentally, uh for putting my faith there. And I don't have to When I have my faith there, I don't have to go all out and say this is where I draw the line in the sand. That's what I'll say, although I will say God said you have to, I would rather you lukewarm or cold? Yeah? Him to him,

I else spit you outline. Now he did say that about him, and I am definitely hot for him land there. We'll see you guys. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. If you have a question for me that would like me to answer, email Grangersmith

Podcast at gmail dot com. Ye