NightSide News Update

It's Night Side with Dan Ray on doubling Busy Boston's new radio.

Thanks very much, Nicole. It is a Friday night, the last Friday, the thirtieth of August. Only have one more day in August. It's amazing to think that this weekend will bring us September, but that's what the calendar tells me, and the calendar does in line. My name is Dan Ray. Rob Brooks, the producer of the program, is back in the control room at Broadcast Central. He'll set you up

I'm doing great And I couldn't agree more on that assessment.

Yes, I'll bet you would. I bet you would agree with me. So, so you're following an Olympic bronze medalist. You did a piece which I read online yesterday. I assume it's in the print version today about an Olympic medalist, bronze medalist from China, and I did not realize she now has Boston as an adoptive home. She's playing this

Yeah, So, her fiance is a Bostonian, Barney Wang is his name, and uh where they met I'm not quite sure, but uh, you know, once they developed that relationship, she kind of adopted Boston as her as her American base because he lives here. And uh so she was really excited to get the chance to play in an LPGA tournament near her adopted home.

Uh.

She's coming off, you know, a very busy month she she she represented China and the Olympics and and was kind of a surprise bronze winner. You know, she hasn't she doesn't want a ton on on on either tour, on the China on China's LPGA tour or the American tour, but she kind of came out of nowhere and and won that bronze medal, and it's probably the biggest uh you know, feather hunder captive to this point.

Now, how tough is it for a woman who's a professional professional golfer to get access out of China to be able to you know, fulfill her career ambitions, not only in the Olympics, but on the LBGA Tour LPGA tour here in America.

Yeah, I'm not sure the politics behind it and and how that that happened, whether she went to college in America or not, I'm not really sure. We didn't have a we didn't get to spend a ton of time with her on Tuesday, but she did have some some interesting stories about you know, being uh, you know in

Yeah, give me the correct pronunciation. I didn't dare try. The last name is Lynn, so that's similar to the to the kid that played for the New York Next no relation.

I assume, yeah that was that was Jeremy. Her pronunciation is you Julie you jun uh?

Yeah?

She uh she she goes by. She even has jan on her bag now. She has you Janet Lynn on her on a golf bag, so easily recognizable. She also has a Celtics putter cover because she loves the Celtics.

Yeah. Uh, your your piece talked about. I guess she was at Red Sox game last night and she's really beginning to become accustomed to the city. And if, if, if Boston is her hometown, then she will be our adoptive favorite on the l B G G A. That's that is for sure. How is the tour the l p G A tour going. All of us are familiar with the w n B A uh and of course the w n B A is a fraction of the money that is involved in the.

N b A.

N b A is the l p g A making some inroads you know on the on the women's women's tour.

Yeah. So this is the inaugural f M Championship at EPC Boston, which for years hosted the men in the on the PGA tour. In the FedEx Cup was the deutsch Bank. It was the Dell Technologies and it was a Northern trust. Always had Tiger Woods as one of their main draws and he was a you know, a chairman of the deutsch Bank. So uh, that ended a couple of years ago when the FedEx Cup went from four tournaments to three. They they ended up chopping off

Well, you know, it's interesting. It's always great to see there have been there have been a few New Englanders, you know. Uh o Keegan Bradley comes to mind on on the PGA tour. But it New England is not a fertile ground for golfers because obviously the golf season except on Cape Cod is pretty limited, uh, you know to what they can do in other other parts of the country.

Uh.

And so it's great to see either some uh some some native born Bostonians or some adoptive Bostonians begin to make some inroads in golf. Because of all the sports. Uh, I wish that I had learned a golf really well when I was young, or tennis. The carryover sports. Everybody in my generation to play baseball, hockey, football, if you're big enough, basketball, but there's not a lot of carryover benefit both in terms of social interaction but also business interaction.

Absolutely, it's a sport you can play your whole life, right, you.

Bet you, You bet you that. And cornhole, which is now that's what anyone could play, hey, Jim McBrien, Yeah, oh, I know that's the thing. Yeah, they're actually broadcasting cornhole tournaments and it's like it's a fun game. Don't get me wrong, But in terms of the amount of preps you need to get good at that compared to professional golf for professional tennis, significant difference. Jim, thanks so much,

Well, Thanks Dan, I appreciate it.

Enjoy your weekend. By the way. That's that's a good gig you got going there, right.

Yeah, it's not fair. I never take that for granted, and I'm watching sports for a living.

Thanks Jim, Thank you so much. Oh, so we'll go from sports with a Globe Rider. We're going to talk next with Larry Edelman, Boston Globe Financial columnis and he's talking about the fact that the Massachusetts unemployment rate has gone up to its highest level in four years, but it's because people are getting off the sidelines and they're looking for jobs. We'll talk to Larry Edelman right after this break. On Nightside. You're listening to WBZ ten thirty

There is, Dan. You got to keep in mind that the unemployment rate is based on what they call the labor force, and so it's the percentage of the labor force that doesn't have a job. So it's not only layoffs that create unemployed people. It's when people come off the sidelines when they haven't been working, when they didn't even want a job. But when they come back to the job market, they are counted as unemployed too. So what we've been seeing.

What's happened then in the last couple of months. I mean, I would assume if someone was unemployed a year ago, or lost their job a year and a half ago, that they would have immediately tried to figure out what's next in their career. So people stayed on the sidelines, didn't even look for work. Did they have great severance packages or were there some government programs which would kind of you know, tied to them, over tied to them over What caused that phenomenon.

Well, there were people who had, you know, the government stimulus checks that came out following the pandemic. And the economists that I talked to out at mass Benchmarks at UMass Stami Hue Institute, they believe that part of the increase in the labor force is people who are coming back and starting to look for work because they've run out of those savings that they had from the pandemic, so they need to go to they need to go

Okay, so what you're saying is some folks who left the Commonwealth and who were not looking for a job in the Commonwealth that that pushed that quotion to whatever that number down. And now because they're coming back and actively looking that is contributed to the number four point six percent. At what point does that number start to really get worriesome? Because reading your piece today, it sounded as if, okay, this is kind of part of the

Yeah, I would say that we would not want to see the unemployment rate in Massachusetts go much higher, you know, certainly no more than five percent, and I think even that would be a lot and not a good sign. You know. The Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said last week that, you know, he thought that the job market had cooled and that it was now healthy but not overheated. And at the same time, he said he wouldn't like

I looked at the interesting chart that you had associated with your story today that back when the pandemic began, we had about three point seven three point eight million people working in Massachusetts March of twenty twenty wis just when it really hit. Yeah, and the lowest point was about three point five in April of twenty twenty, about a year later. So about three hundred thousand people washed out of the economy during that period of time, not

Yeah, it was spiz me. Yeah, it was, you know, an unprecedented type of recession and loss of jobs very quick. When the business is closed when the health land dates went out. But then the rebound was like nothing we'd ever seen before either. The thing that had happened is that once as you identified, Massachusetts got back up to eighty ninety percent, it took a long time for the rest of that gap get filled up, for those years, for the labor force. Yeah, for the labor force to

Your article identified that the increases. It shows increases among both men and women coming back into the workforce prime major workers twenty five to fifty four, as well as old the work is fifty five and above. We've all read the stories about people unretiring because of you know, the pressures of you know, eight nine percent inflation over the over the last years. Where do you think we're headed in the next the next six months, I mean, once once the new year turns, we turned the corner

Well, my best guess is just what I hear from the economists that I talk to. And at this point, nobody dan is forecasting a recession next year. That's the good news. The economy is clearly slowing down. But even in the most recent quarter of that, you know, the second quarter, we just got a revised GDP number of three percent, which is awful good. So even if things

Okay, so this is a question that's out of I'm not sure if it's left field or right field. How do you reconcile all of these numbers and all of these percentages with that report that came out a couple of weeks ago that somehow someway the US Labor Department had overestimated by eight more than eight hundred thousand the jobs that have come back. That has to ripple somewhere. What do you make of that?

Well, well, they do that every year. Those revisions happen. Sometimes they're big, like.

They do it, they do it every month, they do it.

They do it every month. But then they have the big one you know that they do, and they do the initial revision this time of year, and then they make it official I believe in January or so. And look, yes, the economy did not grow as quickly, or employment did not go as quickly grow as quickly as we've thought, but in the grand scheme of things, it was just a minor detour, not anything big to worry about.

So that's that's still eight hundred and eighteen thousand jobs that theoretically, you know, aren't there. I guess you're putting that up against the theoretical number of fifteen million jobs. Is the idea that this is maybe a twelve percent.

Differential, No, it's or because you're talking about one hundred and almost one hundred and sixty million jobs in this country.

No, but I'm saying no, no, I get that. But they we're talking about fifty million. The Biden administration is saying we created fifteen million jobs. So you're saying we should use we should use one hundred and sixty million job figure as So it's one out, it's.

One yeah, and and yes. And we're at record employment right now. I mean, there's never been as many people employed in this country, is there?

You know, as many people in this country right right?

Like you know in Massachusetts, it's happening without a lot of population growth down, which is an interesting twist. You know, you would have thought my first my first thought when this, uh, when I saw the labor force numbers was well, this must reflect immigration. But it doesn't because when you break down the numbers, it is almost all in white workers. And you know, there hasn't been a big increase for

Now, what about black, black employment. Is that bouncing back as well, or.

Or is that you know, the black unemployment rate got to about it, Lois, It's been in a long long time, but in the beginning of this year it started to change direction and go up again. And I'm not quite sure what's going on there, you know, but at one point everybody was crowing about the record employment rate among Black Americans, and that has weakened a bit over the past six eight months.

All right, Larry, you follow this stuff like I follow baseball box scores. I love the perspective and the insight that you I'm serious, I really mean that, and I followed baseball box scores pretty closely. Larry Edelman, Boston Globe columnist. Larry has always really enjoyed you whenever you come on, Come on back soon.

Okay, thank you very much.

Down, thanks much. When we get back on to talk with an author who wrote a book about her journey to America. It's called Taxi to America, a Greek Orphans adoption Journey. We'll be back right after the news the bottom of the Era. My name is Dan Ray. A Friday night on Nightside, coming right back.

It's Night Side, Boston's news radio.

Hi, this is Steve Andres. Make your some pump happy by calling one eight four four four three three five two two five some pump Geeks dot com.

It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.

Thanks to call. My next guest has a very interesting life experience. Her name is Stella Nahadis. She lives up on Boston's North North Shore. She's a proud Greek American. Her story began in Greece. Uh. She is a Greek orphan uh. And her story starts with a taxi cab bran uh. And that's the name of her book, Taxi to America, a Greek Orphans Adoption Journey. Stella Nahadis welcome to Nightside. Uh.

Thank you, Dan, Thank thank you.

Very much for being with us. Tell us how your life started. You were often in Greece.

I was in Greece. The journey started when I was ten years old. My sister and I were orphaned and we were separated. Did you in Greece.

I haven't read the book, but did you lose your parents or how or were you given up for adoption.

I'll just say, well, our parents were killed, but I won't go into the details. It would be a spoiler.

Okay, Okay, so we were, but I'm assuming that's I'm assuming that's in the book.

It's in the book.

Okay. So, so at ten years of age, you and your sister you left Greece.

She did not correct. She was adopted by a couple in Greece. I was adopted by a Greek couple who lived in Boston and was brought to Boston. I grew up in the Brighton section.

How was it that a little girl, a ten year old girl from Greece would be adopted by an American family.

Well, it happened. Uh they were They were Greek. I will say they were Greek Americans. They went to Greece, uh To. They were childless, and they went to Greece to adopt a child. They wanted a daughter, and I happened to be available, Yes, and they brought me here.

And you start off the story about leaving in a taxi. How long was your trip? Interesting to know how long your trip was from from Greece until you finally got here to Barlto.

Well, the taxi ride actually took me to from Thessaloniki uh At, the second largest city in Greece up north the taxi ride took me from there to a village about forty eighty kilometers away from.

Forty eight miles Okay, I did the man forty eight miles.

From there. Biological mother's brother was in charge to take care to do something with us.

Sure, I'll say.

So, he found a couple to adopt my sister right away, and he did find a couple for me also locally nearby. However, because of my I have to say, at a very young age, at ten years old, something very strong and an inner guidance took over me, and I was not adopted at first the first choice that my uncle had. And again the details.

Of that read the book. That's not a problem.

That's with the details of that.

Well, no, no, no need to go there. So how did you get to America?

So the couple from America came and adopted me by that time, By that time, I was eleven years old, and they brought me to Boston.

How much of a culture shock was that? Approximately, because you never asked a woman her age, or you never asked them a trick question that might give up their age. How much of a culture shock? What was going on in the Boston area that that that you can recall, you know, when you came here? What what? What surprised you?

Dan? The first of all the language I was. I didn't speak any English. I flew all myself over here and I did not speak any English. The shock was going to going to sixth grade and not understanding anything that was going on. So what hit me was that I was strange. I wanted to go back to Greece. I didn't know the people that adopted me. They were Greeks, so that was comfortable that I could communicate with them in their immediate environment their friends. However, I felt isolated.

How long was it before you began to feel comfortable here as someone coming here as an eleven year old girl from Greece.

Once they took me out of the sixth grade and sent me to an SL class at the Christopher Columbus High School in Boston, and I began to learn English, So I would say three months, I was conversational and I began to not cry every day. Sure I remember that.

That's the classic example. That's the classic example of the first steps to assimilation, to learn the language. Yes, absolutely, I'm a big believer. I suspect you are as well.

An immersion. I learned it three months, I could converse and I felt more comfortable. Six months, I was fluent, and that fall I went to seventh grade and I did well, and that's when I began to feel comfortable. By eighth grade, I was I had friends. I was really assimulating, and I had already decided during my Christopher Columbus gig that I would assimilate and become an American girl.

Okay, so who was your favorite rock star in those days? Tell me a little bit about what it was like this. I'm trying to picture the culture shop going from Greece.

To culture Shop. I had to. It didn't happen because something else happened between during my eighth grade where I was again pulled out of the States and sent back to Greece again. I will not go into the DA.

Yeah, well don't because we only had about two minutes left here.

So but I came back and went back to eighth grade in high school, bright in high school, and then you know the Beatles were happening.

Yes, so.

I assimulated in participating in clubs. I had a wonderful teacher, and a shout out to the teachers who are mentors and make a difference in children's lives who encouraged me to join clubs when I get to high school too, and that also helped me to really become part of the American culture. And at the same when I was pulled both ways.

So when when was the break? At what point did you reach the fork in the row where you said, okay, going back, staying back, returning degreees was maybe go back for visits, but to go back and live was not the option. I'm now a Greek American, I'm now an American, and I'm on that path of America. When was that moment?

That moment was in sophomore year in high school, I would have to say. And also at that time, my adoptive mother died. I was sixteen, and at nineteen I was definitely the American girl who was staying in the States. My father died also, so I was on my own at nineteen, so I was not going back to Greece to live, and I was left to carve my own American dream, which I feel I did.

I know.

I'm sure that you, I believe that you eventually married. Did you have children here?

I have done that. Yes, I had a first marriage, I had a child, and I did that. And I have to say that by nineteen I had acquired the traits that I needed to find that inner power I had all along well, and that's what the book is about. Resilience, strength, perseverance, persistence,

Well, I think that I'm hoping that folks who purchased the book Taxi to America a Greek orphans adoption journey. You don't have to be Greek to identify with that type of journey, whether it's a journey coming here as someone who's an immigrant or coming here in the pursuit of the American dream. You certainly have lived that life and I would hope that not only would Greek Americans be interested in the book Taxi to America, a Greek

Loki Es, Bars and Noble, and my local stores here at the bookshop in Beverly Farms, the bookstore in Gloucester, and if anyone would like a signed copy in the contiguous USA, I will be happy. They can contact me through my website and I will be happy to ship one.

Okay, what's your website? Give us the website? We only got about twenty seconds left, Stellar, what's the web?

Stellnahattas dot com? Perfect elenahattas dot com.

Stell is easy, s D E L l A nahtas is a little tougher na h A t I S. You got it? You got okay, Stella, thanks very much. I'm sure a lot of people we dined the book for you.

Okay, Hey, hello to our mutual and Rob.

Say hello to our mutual friend, the great Paul Price.

Okay, well, thank you.

Very much, and the entire Price family.

Okay, okay, got it, thank you.

All right, we get back. We're going to talk about a really inspirational story. You know, a lot of people uh the world changed and didn't change for the better during COVID. A lot of families lost members of their family. But we have a story with you of a local pianist with thirty five years of experience turned his life around during COVID and he now does live piano streams and plays gigs full time. And these piano streams that Mark Davis plays are available for anyone to enjoy on

Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.

I want to introduce you to a very interesting gentleman by the name of Mark Davis. He's a professional pianist. Mark Davis, Welcome to Nightside. Thanks for joining us tonight.

Thanks for having me on. Dan. How are you.

We're doing great. We're doing great, so good. How long have you been a professional pianist? How long have you played the piano professionally? Oh?

Since probably or high school. I mean high school. You know, I've been playing in bands since then. I'm playing wedding bands and doing all kinds of function work and playing on my own.

But now you also during this time, I assume you had a nine to five job too, right, as I understand what I did, What did you do for what we call the day job?

I worked like accounting and accounts payable at Harvard Business School publishing for about twenty one and a half years. Interesting, Yeah, and it was. I was just thrilled about the weekends because I was working every weekend.

I was good. Yeah. What I was going to ask you what did you love more working in accounting or playing the piano?

And I guess I know the playing the piano obviously.

That's okay. We won't tell anyone at Harvard Business School.

No, that's okay. So yeah, yeah, so left there.

I'm retired from there, so you know that's fine.

So COVID comes along, and up until this time you would play, you know, weekend gigs, right, give me an idea about the sort of weekend gigs that that you would have picked up pre COVID.

I do weddings like a cocktail hour beneath eas in Dorchester, and I was playing like at the hitching Post in the Hansom, which was like right up the street from my house. I was doing that on Friday nights for the dinner crowd.

So they playing basically what I'm using the wrong term here, Mark correct me. You're playing background music in the piano, right exactly, Yeah, which is good, you know, but you're not at this point, Elton John. But you making a few bucks on the side with the side hustle. So COVID hits and all of that probably starts to go away, right.

It all went away? Yeah, yeah, and it was pretty horrible. It's like I had nothing to do, and you know, I was not working anymore. So that was one good thing, you know, So I didn't have to go into Boston anymore. But I had to find some things.

So there was, So there was kind of a ying and a yang and up and down. You say, there's some gas money going into work, although you probably had to work from home, but on the weekends times hanging heavy on your hands.

Right, it was yeah, yeah, And I felt bad because of a lot of people that used to come and hear me on the weekends, especially in the restaurant. They couldn't hear me anymore. So I was thinking, and I was talking to my son about it. He's like thirty one now, and I said, I really would like to get on Facebook, but I don't know the first thing about doing it. So he helped me get Facebook going, and I started doing a live stream on Facebook on

Okay, so essentially, let's let's let's paint a picture here so we know we're talking about So you're on Facebook and on Saturday nights at seven thirty, I think you told me yest of the time, that's right, You'd open up your zoom channel and your zoom feed, and.

All of a sudden, Facebook, Facebook Feed.

Facebook excuse me. Facebook. You're on Facebook, not Zoom. Okay, all right, okay on Facebook? Yeah, okay, so you're on Facebook. All they got to do is find you on the Facebook page kind of like what we do. We do Facebook Nightside pregame at four thirty and nightside postgame after the show most.

Nights, Yeah, which I watch all the time.

I know that that's one of the threas here because we get to know each other on this Okay, right, perfect, So good all that.

Watches you all the time too, all the time, my son, Oh.

Scott, good demographics there. Let me tell you. Okay, yeah, so you have a Facebook page and you have the cameras on you, and you put on a show for an hour. You tell me every Saturday night.

I do, and ever since the pandemic people still watching me. And so I just continued to do that. And I have people from England and Ireland all over the United States watching me every Saturday night.

And we have to say I can identify you because we do nightside Facebook a pregame at four point thirty and then postgame at midnight to critique the show. We have folks from Mexico, GA. I was down in Mexico, when we have many people up in Canada and we've had people at different countries all over the world, it's pretty.

Right, so great.

So this is my thank you to you because I want to plug your performances.

So every I appreciate that.

No, no, no, my pleasure. So every Saturday night you play and people have an opportunity should they so desire to sit and maybe have coffee and dessert or whatever, sitting in front of their computer. And if they're longtime fians who used to be at restaurants where you play, they can kind of recreate that experience without ever leaving home. And if they're Morpians and they'd like to experience it, how do they find you? So here we go. This is this is the PI.

They're going to find me. Yeah, they're going to find me on you do it. Go to Google and Google search. It's Mark Davis Piano Music and that's where you'll find me. And you'll find all my links right there.

So you go to piano music.

Piano music on Google. Yeah, just no, just go to Google search, Google Google Search, and it will tell you about the Facebook, it'll tell you about YouTube, all of my links and my website is Mark Davispiano music dot com and that has all the information on it too.

Okay, so now do you take requests? What do you how interact? I do?

Yeah, I you know, I say, I'm doing a show Saturday night. If you have any requests, let me know. And I wanted to know if there's anything you'd like to hear, if you like, if you are going to sit in with me on a Saturday night is your Do you have a favorite song?

Well, for me, it's always Danny Boy.

That's a great song. Yeah, I do that on a number of occasions.

I'm sure. Yeah. Now I will let you know when I'm sitting out there. I'm not going to force you to play Danny Boy unless I'm going to be there and I can enjoy it. Okay, I think it's it's gonna be great fun. I mean, you know, maybe folks.

Have a great time.

Yeah. Well, I'll say maybe folks aren't going to bring their computer into the kitchen or the dining room, but they certainly if they have a computer and and they're able to find you, they can sit. They can sit in front of their computer. You literally open up the feed at seven.

Thirty, right, and I like myself no longer.

NI like myself and Marita, who sometimes are a couple of minutes late. Yeah, it's really seven thirty and during the hour on an average Saturday night. How many songs do you play?

Oh, well, that's fun to say. Yeah, thirty forty songs, you know. Anyway, how long do you want?

How how long do you want for?

I'm on for an hour, on for an hour. But I you know, I try and play everything everybody wants to hear, so I've done other times. I've played for Thanksgiving. I like sometimes pre record a showy Thanksgiving so people can listen to it while they're eating Thanksgiving dinner. And they've really enjoyed that too, and oh it's wonderful. I love doing it. And I also play nurse and homes and it's just living places, and that's where I really

No, I don't.

I'm so glad we had this time together.

Oh great, Okay, Yeah, I mean, I love music, but I'm not someone who remembers songs and remembers music. If you want to ask me about middle infielders with the Cincinnati Reds in the nineteen I'll tell him Johnny Temple and Roy McMillan, and people will understand that, right, at least people from that era. But yeah, you know, but but yeah, so look, this is great. Give us the Facebook page again.

Sure, it's if you go it's if you go to Google, it's Mark Davis Piano Music. If you look it up on the Google Google and it'll show all the links. It will show you how to get to Facebook. The Facebook one is Mark Davis Piano Music twenty three.

If someone wants to email you, okay, or it's the easiest way for someone. If someone says, hey, I want to bring Mark here. We're going to generate some business with you, what's the easiest way for them? To get get in touch with you directly. It would be anything you want.

Sure, it'd be Mark Davis Piano Music at gmail dot com.

Perfect perfect, Mark David Panel Music at gmail dot com.

Mark Davis, I think I think that's up with the links to with the Google on the Google.

I want to know someday next week. Did you get a bump in your in your listening audience this Saturday night?

Already? I have already, thank you very much. I've been, you know, saying I was going to be on here today and a lot of people were interested, So thank you so much for having me on.

Really well, maybe I've got some some new listeners in the in the process, Mark appreciated.

I'd love to talk to you again sometime soon.

We can make that happen, my friend, We can make that happen. You can talk to me tonight, by the way, at midnight, right after the show nights on Facebook night Side with Dan Ray.

You know that that sounds good? Yeah?

All right?

And if you have won me, did you happen to see any of the videos?

I have not as yet? And I and I got to run because my producer yelling in my ear and we got a we got another hour, another three hours to do. We'll get in touch tonight. Okay, thanks Mark.

We're talking great Labor day, thank you too.

Great weekend and I'm off week thanks Palm. Here comes to nine o'clock news. After the nine o'clock news is going to talk about a real tough story, and that is the death of two young hockey players, including one guy. Both of them played at Boston College, Boston's b season morning tonight. We'll be back right after this