A St. Louis Radio Host on Cancel Culture, Lost Sports Unity, and Self-Censoring for the First Time

Mark Reardon [00:00:00] With gay marriage, my position was solidified because I knew people who were gay when I was 15, 16, 17. And guess what? They were normal pe. They were regular people. I just like me. So I had relationships with them. More and more families over the decades had realized that they have sons and daughters who were gay. So that has opened up their eyes to different experiences and made them feel differently.

Vance Crowe [00:00:23] I'm Danica plu, a grad student living in Fort Collins, Colorado, and you are listening to the Vance Grow Podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today is an episode that I have spent weeks trying to get on the calendar. It is with a man named Mark Rearden, who, if you are from St. Louis, chances are, if you don't know the name, you definitely know the voice because he is a talk show host on KMOX radio, which is probably the most famous radio station, if not just in St. Louis, all across the Midwest. It's one that is famous for publishing St. Louis Cardinals games, and can be heard all throughout the country just because of our unique location and the way that radio waves give off their sound. We're gonna go to that interview in just a second, but I want to make a, a quick little note about the Articulate Ventures network. When I started this group, it was really just a way for me to give back because there were a bunch of people that said they wanted to donate to the podcast and I didn't feel so great about just putting out my hat and saying, well donate here. And so I put it together and I didn't know what would happen. But what has happened is a collection of people from throughout the United States, even some other countries, have come together and turned it into a community where we are having in-depth conversations, respectful disagreement, and we're having really great conversations. It's a private group and people pay to get into it, but it's not a secret group. It's an area where what we want is for a patchwork of thinkers from all different geographies to come together and just explore ideas together.

Vance Crowe [00:02:03] It's really neat. We're gonna be making some major upgrades starting October 1st. And so if you would like to get into the group, we're gonna actually have a monthly fee increase, but if you'd like to get in before that, then head to Network dot Articulate Ventures. That will take you to the website and you will be able to join. Right now it is $20 a month or some lower price if you go for the whole year. But starting October 1st, that price is gonna go up because we are actually trying not to grow too fast. We wanna grow at a, at a moderate pace so that that way every new person that comes in gets to meet the group, understand the culture, figure out how they fit in with everybody else, and contribute to a conversation that is worth having. So if you're interested in that, go to network, Articulate Ventures. Alright, without further ado, we are heading to this interview with my man, mark Rearden. Mark Rearden, welcome to the podcast.

Mark Reardon [00:03:04] Hey Vance, how are you? Thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it,

Vance Crowe [00:03:08] Man. It's, it's unusual to hear you on my podcast 'cause you're a voice that I hear all the time in St. Louis. In fact, probably the only voice I ever hear consistently on radio is yours. But you are, I don't even know what you would call yourself as like a, did you call it a dj, a a talk show host? How do you call that?

Mark Reardon [00:03:27] Well, I think at this point, yeah, talk show host. You know, I started in Music radio way back in the, the early 1980s and then sort of transformed into talk in the early nineties. So yeah, I'd say radio host or just somebody who yaps on the radio. I mean, I, I don't know if there's an official title for that.

Vance Crowe [00:03:46] One of the things that strikes me about radio is that it is entirely location dependent. I mean, I guess somebody can get on and listen to you streaming, but the real value of tuning into the radio as opposed to downloading a podcast is that everyone within a certain geography can hear that. And I think KMOX, the radio station that you're at, has tremendous cultural significance with St. Louis. But if you're from somebody that's far away from St. Louis, how do you describe KMOX to people?

Mark Reardon [00:04:17] Yeah, so I do this with guests a lot. And the call letters themselves, Vance, as you know, they, they hold a lot of importance throughout the whole country. So a lot of people know the radio stations reputation for being as legendary as it is. And you know what I tell people sometimes who come on the air with me, I say, Hey, look, do you, do you follow sports? Are you a sports fan? Bob Costas started here. Joe Buck started here. But even beyond that, and this is one of those things where I'm not a scientist, nor do I play one on the radio, but we have something that's called the Skip with our signal. And on a good night, you can get this radio station on AM 1120 throughout much of the Midwest, the South, you know, you don't hop over the mountains too much. I've been in, I'll give you a small example of this Sanibel Florida, several years ago, nine 30 at night after the sun goes down, turn it into a little blues hockey playoff action. And Camex was booming in, you know, so the radio station reaches far and wide, and because of that, and because of the reputation it had in the seventies and the eighties with big name hosts and, you know, you didn't have a lot of places to turn back then. There weren't really even many television stations. You certainly didn't have podcasts, so everyone had to come to the radio. But that's certainly changed. And to your point, the strength now is keeping it local, talking about what's happening in our community. Because yeah, I listened to maybe a few podcasts or some national hosts. I like to check out Howard Stern out again and these guys on PGA radio on Sirius.

Mark Reardon [00:05:49] I can't, I guess I'm not supposed to admit that I have satellite radio, but I enjoy a lot of things, you know, that are national. But yeah, we try to focus on what's happening in St. Louis. And you know, if, if we're being honest here, the other strength of the radio station, the region that it has, or the reason that it has, the, the, you know, the big listenership and the reputation is because of the St. Louis Cardinals. And let me just offer this one, one little story, because we have people that grew up as Cardinals fans that have become very well known. Like John Ham from here in St. Louis Billy Bob Thornton is always someone that I point to. He grew up in Arkansas and is a huge, huge Cardinals fan. Became very close with Tony Larussa. I went up to him Vance at an award show, I don't know, seven or eight years ago. And he was, he was surrounded by a-listers, okay, there were a-listers everywhere. And I went up to him, I'd never met him before. I said, Hey, bill, if you've been to a Cardinals game this year, and he locked in on me, like, you would not believe it. And sorry, my, my guy is cutting my lawn. I'm gonna try to get to a more quiet location. And we talked about the Cardinals for several minutes and just had a great conversation. I mean, there's big names, stars around us, but because of the reputation that the Cardinals have, that that really, you know, John Malkovich is another guy, grew up here, I like to drop names. V grew up here in the St. Louis area, listened to Ka wax. I introduced myself to him and he goes, oh, I listen to KA X all the time. He still had family members in Southern Illinois. So the, the station has a great reputation and a lot of history.

Vance Crowe [00:07:24] The, the odd thing about things like Cardinal, so I grew up in Central Illinois, and there's kind of this Mason Dixon line between whether you're a Cardinals fan or a Cubs fan. And radio, I think actually is is one of those things that defines whether or not you, you picked up becoming a, a Cardinals fan or Cubs fan. But in Coronavirus, everything changed in my mind on the value of sports, because how people define themselves, you know, where you say you're from is often dependent on things like, which sports teams do you care about? And when there was that sudden evaporation of all of the sports going on, and the reason that so many people would come to the city or start to identify it with is, is suddenly just knocked out. It, it was like, to me it was one of those sociological phenomenons that nobody could have predicted. Like, what happens to a community when the thing that makes them a community that, that transcends all of the politics and all of the problems that they have just suddenly goes away. Did you see that when you were, you know, watching sports evaporate?

Mark Reardon [00:08:34] I think so, and you know, it, it's tough because that's one of the things that it does bring this community together. And I think that the challenges that we all had, just mentally without having baseball in the spring on top of everything that was happening with the pandemic was, was really, really tough. And yeah, it, it kind of poses some challenges for the radio station and, and identity, which instantly shifts to news. You know, we are a news and a sports station, so we try to bring people as much information as we possibly can. I mean, that's what my show focuses on. And my show, as you know, has a bit of a political bent. So that, that inter That's an interesting observation though, because, you know, I don't know what the long-term effects of, of even having no fans in baseball stadiums or football stadiums will eventually be, you know, in St. Louis or anywhere else.

Vance Crowe [00:09:30] Well, I think that this is really brought up, like what is it to be in a community? And I've known that since the internet really started popping up. I mean, I was traveling all over the country talking about a concept called tribes, which I did not invent. But really it's the clustering together of people that have tightly head held values, right? Yeah. And you, you already know what that group of people thinks about something. It changes much slower than in other places because you have all these norms and you know how to behave and who the leaders are. But in effect, a community is a collection of tribes where you're pushing people together that wouldn't naturally cluster together, but they have some unifying thing. And to me, sports had always been something I, I'm not a big sports fan, I'll go to Cardinals games 'cause that's a big part of the fabric of, of St. Louis. But if you strip that out, then what unifying thing do you have to make it so that people have a reason to come together, collide with one another, and, and instead of doing the zero sum fight to the death that happens on social media, you know, you know, you might have to sit next to that person at another Cardinals game. So you can't just like obliterate them in a discussion and you start colliding with different ideas. So to me, there is a, a value in sports that I did not appreciate. And I think that we're, we are maybe going to reap what we sow here in the fact that we aren't bringing people together.

Mark Reardon [00:10:52] Yeah, I mean, I think the answer to your question is we don't have anything that will bring people together and beyond that, here's, and this is where we get into a tough topic here. Beyond that when we do get sports again, where fans are allowed to come into stadiums and gather and celebrate, there's, now this, this is a tricky topic, but now that you have Black Lives Matters and all of these things integrated in sports, and let's face it, there's always been social justice movements, you know, related to sports and athletes and big names. But this is kind of different now, the summer of 2020, I mean, this year when, when history professors teach about 2020 in, you know, 50, 75, a hundred years this year is just incredible when you think about all the changes that will happen because of the pandemic. And it's sad, Vance, you, you raise a great point because it's tough and, and I've alienated myself from friends only because of my show and political differences and things like that. And you, you really lose out on that opportunity to get together with people and not talk about politics. I took a little grief last week because I sat on social media, you know, in the aftermath of what happened with the Kansas City Chiefs and the, the first NFL game with the lead up to the game that, look, I go to sports,

Vance Crowe [00:12:15] I don't even know what happened. What are you talking about?

Mark Reardon [00:12:16] Well, so I am a, I'm a big, big sports guy, and I, I depend on the NFL and Major League Baseball and, and everything else. But you know, in, in the, the first game for the Chiefs Super Bowl champions, they had, of course, a a lot of it wasn't just this show of unity on the field, there was a buildup on television with the songs that we're playing the black national anthem. And then you lead, you know, lead into closer to the game. What happened was, is Pat Mahomes, the Chiefs, they invited the Houston, Texas on the field, and they all joined hands and kind of locked together in this show of unity. Well, that became controversial because some of the fans, and it was an isolated group of fans, and there's also a little bit of nuance to this, but there was some booing that went on at the stadium. So the question is, and the national media jumped on this, why, why was there booing for a show of unity? Well, I, I looked at it a little differently, and I think that the, by the way, the nuance is, there's, there's an indication that maybe somebody yelled something about Trump and Trump 2020, and that's why the fans booed. But let's just kind of look at it like maybe the fans booed the, you know, the players. Well, there's a variety of reasons they could have done that one, because they're like, look, let's just get to the game. People don't like that answer. But, but it's true for a sports fan like me, what I did, you might be offended by this, some people listening, but I tuned in at 6 55 for the seven 15 kickoff. I saw a bunch of social justice preaching, I turned it off 7 0 5, there was more, I tuned it back to the baseball game, tuned in at seven 15.

Mark Reardon [00:13:50] There was more. So finally when we got to kickoff, I watched the game. But you've alienated a lot of fans here with the, you know, the politicization of, of what's happening in sports. And I'm too addicted to sports, so I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I'm not buying Nike shoes or something like that. I love sports and I really depend on them for my entertainment with my wife. And my daughter's a huge, you know, sports fan. She loves to watch Cardinals games with me. But your point is, is really on target with, with the lack of opportunities to get together. Music's another thing I would say. That's where we do that as well. I'm a big music guy, concerts, you go out, you know, hopefully I don't like to talk politics when I'm being social at a baseball game, a football game or a concert. And that's another area where we usually get together, you know, globally with music. And we are just robbed of that experience. And that, that's, even for me, that's tougher than sports. It really is, because I'm such a big music person,

Vance Crowe [00:14:46] The danger of bringing politics into art and to, and I mean politics is always in art, but into sports, is that you open up this thing where instead of focusing on the aesthetics of the art or on the beauty of the game or on what's going on there, which allows you to transcend the divisions and have this community is now you've, you've implemented some a space where now people have to fight over what is the meaning of these things. Whereas before it was, let's, let's, instead of having physical combat between people to decide who's right or wrong, we can get out this cathartic understanding of like, hey, two, two teams are smashing into one another. We get to cheer for that. We get to have all the excitement around it. But now if you bring like the politics behind the individuals that are there, or the groups that own things, now you're bringing that fight into the crevices. And instead of it being a unifying thing, it's just only going to further separate people. It's very, very dangerous. And I see why any one individual wants to use their platform to, to make their ideas known and understood and and publicized. But I think that they should also recognize that that comes at a very, very high price to everyone that else that's involved in that platform, and that you've just turned the platform into something it wasn't before.

Mark Reardon [00:16:10] Yeah, I mean, you, you certainly have a right to do that. There's consequences for actions. We learned this with, you know, the Dixie Chicks many years ago.

Vance Crowe [00:16:20] I forgot about that.

Mark Reardon [00:16:21] Well, and you know, and they, they, they were gone for a long time. They have a brand new out mount. They rebranded themselves with a new name because of all the, the wokeness right now. But it, it is, I don't know, I'm, I'm concerned about a lot of things, and I'm sad about a lot of it too, because just using the Chiefs as an example, this is an area where I've friends from across the country that we've been longtime Kansas City Chiefs fans and celebrated that Super Bowl victory together. And then when everything happened with the NFL opener and I made comments, or I put something on my social media, then those same chiefs fans that have bonded with me over decades, decades now we're on other sides, I guess I, I don't know that, you know, it's, it's sad.

Vance Crowe [00:17:05] Well, it makes me think that there, so there's this concept called the intransigent minority, and it comes from this guy named Naem Talib who says, you know, we think that societal change comes from the center of a distribution saying, Hey, we're gonna move to the left or to the right a little bit. But what he actually says is that is not how things work. The intransigent minority is on the outside, they have a radical idea, maybe it was even unthinkable. And they push that so hard that the middle says, ah, let's give a little bit of room, let them do their thing, you know, then we'll come to some kind of agreement. But as soon as they move in a little bit, now they've got more space and they just keep doing it and pushing and pushing. And that's, that's the challenge because I think oftentimes the people that you might get in a fight with over the Kansas City Chiefs, they're just trying to be like, Hey, let's, let's leave open a little bit of space, let people talk. This is the way we settle things out. Not realizing that by opening that door, now you're just going to have this entire area flooded and, and once it's just like getting water in a library once the water's in there, you can't just go dry the books out. It doesn't work that way.

Mark Reardon [00:18:09] No, it doesn't work that way. And that, I, you know, I, I'd be curious a little bit more about that theory and that philosophy, because there, there's something to that. And where you have, I, I guess I feel like there's no room for someone right now to take a step back and say, look, we realize, I realize that there are a lot of injustices in this country, and there's racism that is outrageous. There's police brutality. All these things exist, but the way that we are trying to get rid of them right now, and by we, I mean the protesters and black lives matters, and the movement and the athletes, I, I don't know. Well, maybe I kind of do know that that is not pushing people further apart. I think there's a lot of people who, this is another one of those things. And Vance, I'll be honest with you, I've never, in my entire career on the radio have been worried about saying something that would get me in trouble. I find myself in a different position in this era right now. So I'm always a little bit more careful about some of the things that I say, because I think it's tempting to paint with a broad brush, even on those people who have genuine concerns about social justice when they say, look, we are getting hammered non, I'm being told I'm a racist every single day. And, and it wears on you because I believe that there are issues that need to be corrected, but I'm tired of being blamed for all this when I don't feel like my culpability is, is something that should be focused on.

Mark Reardon [00:19:43] So that's a tough position because you can still care about the issues. I think the other side would say, no, look, that's not good enough. We've gotta light fires, we've gotta loot, we've gotta do something to get the attention of people. I mean, that, that's a strong philosophy that the leaders of the movement, maybe not everyone that carries a sign, that's what they feel. So I get it. I understand what they're saying and, and how they feel. They, they need to make change, but, but that's very dangerous.

Vance Crowe [00:20:10] Well, and what you're describing actually goes along. So when, right when coronavirus hit, and there was that guy that went to the Carlton for the daddy-daughter dance, and you know, people thought that maybe he exposed everybody, and you saw mobs pop out, and I came out right away because I used to live in Africa where I saw what would happen if a mob is allowed to exact justice. So I was very, very worried about that. And everything that I was worried about got way worse than I even dreamed of. But my next fear, it comes from the exact thing that you're saying. So you've got a bold person that's made his career on being able to articulate ideas and get people to wanna tune in and listen to them out in the public where you can actually literally broadcast it out of the airways. The new danger is that if you are afraid to say things out in the open, then it's not that they aren't thought, and it's not that they won't be said, it's that people will now go into private areas and they will start secluding themselves away from everyone else, and they'll start talking about these ideas. And because they're not out in the open now, you will start having ideas that maybe had a kernel of, of something interesting or good or worth pursuing. But now those ideas are completely unchecked. And so you start having people that take one idea and just dig it deeper and deeper and deeper. And so the very, very thing that everybody is screaming about is what will be created. It'll be a culture where people go in and they say, I know I'm not supposed to say this, but now we can talk about it. And, and you start having these private groups that turn into secret groups that turn into dark, dark things coming out of that.

Vance Crowe [00:21:46] And I think that's the next stage that comes after the mob

Mark Reardon [00:21:50] Look, that's very real, very real. And, and I think you're right, and I don't know if there's anything we can do about it at this point, because I, I feel like we, we can't get to a point, look, if we can't get to a point in this country where we can't assess what's going on in situations with facts, which is what we've been unable to do with police shootings. I mean, there, there's a lot of nuance to all these things. Even going back to Mike Brown, and I said from the very beginning, six years ago, that I don't know what happened out there. I'm gonna wait and see what the facts are. Well, the, the other side decided they knew exactly what happened, and the facts never moved them away from that position. And that's sort of where we are right now. And I, I think that we're in real, if we can't have people that are genuinely concerned about police brutality, and they, they should be, it's a real issue. And I think we're beyond the one bad apple. I mean, let's face it, there's a lot of bad apples. So it's not just one bad apple, it's a concern. I don't like no-knock warrants. You know what happened in Louisville. I also strongly feel that that case had nothing whatsoever to do with race. But if we can't take a step back and say, you know, there's no trust from a lot of people, I get it with police, but there's a guy that's in Pennsylvania that Lancaster, that comes out of his home and he's got a knife and he's charging toward police, and they have it on the body cam, and now there's riots over that, even though the guy had a knife, well, he was mentally ill, so he didn't deserve to die, which is probably true. But what are police officers supposed to do in, in these situations when they're protecting people from violence?

Mark Reardon [00:23:27] They're supposed to protect people from violence. So it's it, boy, we've gotten ourself into a big mess in this country, haven't we? A big mess.

Vance Crowe [00:23:36] Yeah. And like the, the politicization where we got started on every single area has made it so there is no shelter from the storm, right? Like the, the, I saw the other day that somebody made the decision to, to put a mask on the apotheosis statue, the statue of St. Louis on the top of Art Hill in front of the art museum. And I was like, no matter what your feelings are about masks, it's a mistake to go take that figure. That should be a unifying thing and put something on it that's divisive. If you don't want crowds of people arguing over that one, you know, pillar, you know, using that as their, their war, cry over who wins and who loses, then don't politicize it. Don't put a damn mask on it because the, there's no one is going to decide to wear a mask because they saw it on a sculpture, but they will fight over it. So I don't understand who in these positions is thinking this is the, the right path, and unless what they want is actual division,

Mark Reardon [00:24:37] I think it's some cases that is what people want, and that's on both sides, you know? So that's not just something that, you know, the left or the right has ownership to, but I think they want, they want division. And some people think the division is going to help their movement. So I think that's all part of it as well.

Vance Crowe [00:24:52] So one of the things that I talk about a lot is finding people that you disagree with the most and yet still respect. And I think you have a long history of that. You have people on your, your show that regularly every week that you disagree with, but you still bring 'em on and you still speak to them respectfully. When did you get started in this world? And, and like, how's that going now, now that we're living in a more divisive world?

Mark Reardon [00:25:19] Well, my background outside of being in music radio, which is where I started here in St. Louis at this little tiny radio station, I went to the University of Missouri. My dad cut a deal with me. He knew I wanted to go into radio. He said, that's fine, but you have to go to college. So I went to Mizzou. I got a journalism degree. So I always sort of approached, even when I went into talk radio, I was a news director in Columbia, I started doing talk and I approached it more with a news sensibility. So the reputation, I spent almost 10 years at WTMJ in Milwaukee, which is another heritage radio station.

Vance Crowe [00:25:51] I know that one. Yeah, sure.

Mark Reardon [00:25:52] Reputation. And I had the reputation up there for being, you know, people knew what my politics were, libertarian, conservative. But I, I approached the other side with fairness. I had great relationships with, with most people who were elected, who were Democrats. Tom Barrett, who's the mayor of Milwaukee right now, was my congressman. I knew him very well. You know, we disagreed, I'll use an example here in Missouri. Senator McCaskill, Senator McCaskill. And I disagreed on many, many things, but I liked her. Some of my listeners did not appreciate this. I I genuinely liked her. I say liked because there's been a little bit of a turn in that recently since she left office. I still like her, but I, I questioned a couple of the things that she's doing right now. But we, we had a great relationship and, and the bond was black and gold because we both went to Mizzou. So I remember embracing Senator McCaskill when Mizzou came back, the last game, they played KU at Mizzou Arena. And we were so thrilled because it was an amazing comeback. But we, you know, we've knocked heads on politics, but she would come on, we'd be respectful. Congressman Clay is another one, you know, have a great relationship with him. Most of the people on the other side I have had good relationships with over the years. I think that's important because why can't you have conversations? Where we're at though, is that a lot of people on the far right don't want to hear anything from anyone. Senator McCaskill's a good example of this, Vince, because I had listeners that repeatedly would tell me, she's a kooky lefty, she's a nutty, you know, Democrat, blah, blah, blah, because everything in politics is also local.

Mark Reardon [00:27:28] Senator McCaskill's, not like Senator Durbin in Illinois, or Senator Schumer. Her votes were certainly along party lines. She's a Democrat, but she wasn't as extreme as those Democrats who represented other states. Republicans are the same way. So, you know, I think it's important to have those conversations. We do something on my show on Friday, it's called The Rear Roundtable. It was set up and inspired more than 20 years ago by Bill Mars First show, politically incorrect, where you had people on the left and right. I serve, you know, as the moderator and host, but I'm, I'm on the right. I got someone else that comes on. We have two people on the left, and we toss around the issues. It gets, you know, intense. Sometimes it might get heated, but we always walk away and we're friends. I've had some people come on the round table over the years, and it's got angry and difficult. We, those people don't come back. So it's sort of been what I've been about, you know, for, for my entire radio career. I think it's important to have those conversations with people and it gets

Vance Crowe [00:28:31] Well, and those are the only conversations where anything new comes out of it, right? Like, if you just have people on that already agree with you, there's no chance that you guys will unearth something new and important or, or grab some new great idea because the, the newness comes from things clashing together and you saying, ah, that's something I really hadn't considered before and I'm gonna go implement it. But when it becomes completely partisan, like for the sake of being partisan, there's, there's very little little point in even getting together to talk.

Mark Reardon [00:29:03] Well, it's all, you know, we all have confirmation bias and that's been put on steroids. So I think a lot of people don't want to hear what another perspective is. People ask me a lot, you know, what my favorite websites are, and let me toss one out there for people who wanna be, you know, thinking people politically about issues. And it's called realclearpolitics.com started off as a polling site in 1999 for the 2000 election. Carl Cannon, whose father Lou is a legendary Washington journalist, and some other folks put it together. And now it's a compendium. Basically, if you go to real clear politics.com on the top of the page, you'll see an article that says, you know, climate change is causing all the wildfires in California Death and destruction. You know, we gotta do something about it. Then right underneath that, there's a story that says, look, this is not driven by climate change. It's, there's other issues and this is all alarmism. So there's a lot of balance in the opinion pieces that they put up. There's a bunch of audio. They also have different divisions like real clear science and real clear sports. It's just a great, you know, it's a great spot to go to read different opinions from different people. So I always recommend that. I think different opinions are important. You know, I think a lot of people who listen to me assume my position is one way because they assume where I am politically, because I follow Rush Limbaugh and I'm a conservative talk show host. I will tell you right now that I was, I'll use gay marriage as an issue. I was for gay marriage long before Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and most Democrats because I had relationships in the 1980s with friends of mine, mentors who were gay.

Mark Reardon [00:30:42] I don't give a rip. I never have. I never have. And that's an area, you know, that I've maybe had some differences with people in the past that are conservative around the right. I think that's evolved as well. But those are important perspectives. You know, I mentioned the no-knock warrants, a lot of conservatives, a lot of people on the right would support that, police would support that. We need the element of surprise. I, I, I think that that goes too far. And I'm coming down on my libertarian streak on that, you know, drugs is another one where the, the war on drugs is something that I firmly believe is a complete failure. I've been for decriminalization, legalization of marijuana for decades, you know, decades. So my positions on, on all these issues aren't just, you know, check the boxes off for the conservative or the Republican side. I, I like to tackle these issues and give people something to think about maybe that they haven't thought about. It's hard to do, but, but I'm hoping there's some people out there paying attention.

Vance Crowe [00:31:41] You know, you were talking about, you know, marriage, gay marriage, but also just marriage in general in the state's role in it. The other day, I, I, so I just became the father of a newborn child, six old. And so I'm going through this experience where I don't have any idea what I'm doing, and, and so I'm seeing how much work it takes of me and my wife and trying to make this happen. And I made some comments about how difficult it would be to be a single parent. And any child that comes out of that, you know, is like bravo. Because, you know, if I had been raised with only my mother or only my father, there's no one that could have contained me. There's, there's no chance that one person alone could have, could have molded me into the person that I am. And so I went out and was like, Hey, this is, I was trying to give credit to single parents or just discussing how, how hard this is. People went berserk on me about the, the challenges of, of divorce and how it's not fair and it would be left and right. And it was like, but I, I had just, it was like the most, the most vitriol I've ever received of anything on Twitter. And I've received vitriol before was over that comment. And I just, I can't help but wonder if, if the reason that people are so vitriolic over it is because the government has too much power and yet another domain of our lives, like gay marriage. Like why, why do we, why do we care whether the government's involved in marriage at all, divorce? Like, like if we limit this power, then everyone wins in this scenario.

Vance Crowe [00:33:13] But

Mark Reardon [00:33:13] What was your, I'm, I'm a little confused on what, what set people off? Explain what, what, what were people specifically reacting to?

Vance Crowe [00:33:20] So I had put it out there that it, it would be very difficult for anyone to transcend the life that they have if there's only one parent there, because there's only one parent to teach you, only one parent to care for you. And so I was saying, any child that can transcend that bravo to them and people interpret it, and I'm certain I could have written it better as though I was

Mark Reardon [00:33:40] Oh, I see

Vance Crowe [00:33:40] Denigrating single parents and that it wasn't anything about divorce. It wasn't, but I stumbled into this issue Yeah. And didn't realize how hot it was.

Mark Reardon [00:33:48] Right. Well that's interesting. And that does happen, you know, even on the talk show side of things where you get a reaction that maybe wasn't expected. It, it happens on social media a lot because you can't indicate tone, your tone isn't you, you know, so I get misinterpreted, even I'm a fan of snark and sometimes my snark gets interpreted as something that I'm trying to say, not in a humorous way, but yeah, it's tough and, you know, because people can do it anonymously on, on Twitter and, and I was an early adapter and adopter to Twitter and, and Facebook. But man, there's a lot about social media right now that just turns me off completely.

Vance Crowe [00:34:26] I think the free social media, I think in the next two to three years, those will be gone. I, I think that for the most part, the activity that's there, people got in there and now you have a tragedy of the commons thing where because the price of entry is zero, everyone gets in there and the value of grabbing your attention, the cost of grabbing your attention is virtually nothing. But then you're, you're watching all of this most valuable thing. You have your attention be leaked out into paying to attention to total strangers that just wanna grab you.

Mark Reardon [00:34:59] Yeah, it took me a long time. You know, I'm 55 years old now. It took me a long time to not care about what someone who is, is tweeting at me or emailing, you know, to, to recognize that the haters are gonna hate. I I don't give into 'em anymore. But there, there's a lot sometimes when I see the comments, you know, and I have to really, every once in a while Vance, I still respond, but I try to just kind of turn it off and, and not respond to a lot of that.

Vance Crowe [00:35:25] So, changing subjects, but since you're, you know, involved in St. Louis politics, one of the things that I see a lot of text messages from, not, not in public, but in private people sending me videos of like pandemonium going on in downtown St. Louis, like people in the middle of the night doing like burnouts and Yes. And doing 360 degree driving with their cars and drag racing. Is that really going on?

Mark Reardon [00:35:52] It's terrible and it is really going on, and I think it's undercovered. I was someone who in the month of July was really, really hammering on came x on the crime issue in St. Louis, because we had between July, and I'd have to look at the August numbers, between July and June, we had 80 plus murders in the city of St. Louis. Beyond that, we had some of these things that you were happening. Yeah, in two, I saw your reaction on the Zoom call, 80 murders in two months. We've now exceeded, we've already exceeded the number of murders for all of last year. But beyond that, it's some of the assaults and some of the things that are happening in downtown. And it is real. And I think we've all, and I've tried to take a stand in the past when people from Baldwin where I grew up, or Chesterfield or somewhere else, I'm not coming downtown. It's too dangerous downtown. I I remember a decade ago, I said, come on, you can safely come downtown to St. Louis to a baseball game or something else. You don't have to worry. I, I don't feel that way right now. I wish I didn't have to say that because if we had baseball, my office, when I'm going to the radio station is right downtown, not too far from Enterprise center and City Hall. And I've had issues down there just personally walking to Enterprise Center and walking to the Cardinals games. I, I think we've had too many examples of things that have happened even in broad daylight. And the city of St. Louis, it is a crisis and there are no easy answers because you have a lack of intestinal fortitude and political courage from the mayor and others. You have a circuit attorney that, in my opinion, is not doing her job effectively. So we're, we're maybe getting a little bit of a pass here, only because we can't come downtown because of the pandemic.

Mark Reardon [00:37:29] But it is real, and it, it's baffling because you have, you know, again, the mayor who wants to talk about wearing masks all the time, which is fine, I support that. But we have a very, very serious violent crime problem in St. Louis, and it's widespread and it's very concerning, and nobody seems to really wanna get a handle on it.

Vance Crowe [00:37:50] Well, I think in the last, I don't know, three, five, maybe even longer generations, we have not had people that are worried about their physical safety. And so it becomes something that you take for granted. But one of the things that people don't realize is if a, if a group of people don't feel safe, they will not stay in that position. They will, they will take up arms, they will fight for their own justice. They, and that goes on both sides. You know, if you think that the police force is an occupying force and you're not safe from them, you'll push back. Right? But then by the same token, if you believe the other citizens or the other people that you're around are, are, are potential threats to you all the time, you're only going to see that ratchet up and, and like then what's the response? Then you're gonna increase police force, right? At the time when people are are worried about too much strength of, of political authority, like it's, it's not good.

Mark Reardon [00:38:44] No. And you know, from the, from the bottom to the top, one of the things that I think that we're seeing a crisis in beyond the, the crime and economics and everything else is leadership, you know, from the top on down. You, you know, and I'm, I'm not a guy who voted for President Trump. I'm certainly someone who's supported some of the things he's done. And I'm not a never Trumper either, because I think those folks have gone a little bit overboard. But I don't think we have good quality of leadership. And one of the reasons is because the people who are built to be leaders are not in government. They're smarter than that. They don't want the hassle. But we need someone, you know, and I've, I've hammered on our mayor in St. Louis Reen a lot because I think that she's someone who would be perfectly, her husband was killed in a tell

Vance Crowe [00:39:30] That story because I didn't know that story until just maybe three weeks ago or something.

Mark Reardon [00:39:33] Yeah, I don't know all the details of it. This happened a long time ago. But she did have, you know, firsthand experience with, with a murder. Her husband was killed many years ago. So she knows crime and, and, and she would be someone who I think could have a more forceful voice in taking the lead on crime in St. Louis and trying to do something about it. But she's not done that, I think because she's worried about the reaction of a certain amount of the electorate. And, you know, both sides do this. They, they, they worry about, you know, losing votes. And I wish someone could just take the office at one point and say, look, we're gonna try to fix some of these things and we're gonna try to lead and not worry about who's, who's going to vote for me next time. But that, that's a big issue.

Vance Crowe [00:40:18] I think that we've, we've built our political class actually into an a, a class of, of actors, right? Like their, their strong suit is their ability to be able to perform in social media and on mainstream media and their ability to like, navigate those things. Whereas in the past, we were selecting based on some other thing criteria of being a war hero, being a a, a business person, a, a statesman in some way. And I don't know how you come back from that, because we're not gonna get rid of social media anytime soon.

Mark Reardon [00:40:49] No, I don't know how you come back from it either, really. And, you know, then you have a situation where the regular media, the mainstream media, those of us in radio, I won't talk nationally. Let's talk locally here. Newspapers, I think local journalism, investigative reporting is vital. And we don't have the resources for that. So when you have issues with leadership corruption, we've had certainly a fair share of that around here. You don't have the opportunity to root some of this out when you don't have people who are in those positions because of the, the economics of media right now. So that, that becomes a, a bigger issue when it comes to having a thriving republic. I think

Vance Crowe [00:41:25] One of my favorite things to ask people, and it only works when you have somebody that's bold in their, in their openness is it's called the Peter Teal paradox. And so this is what is one thing that you believe that is true, that almost no one agrees with you on? And the reason this is such a great question is if you say something people already agree with you failed. And if you say something nobody agrees with you on, suddenly you have to now talk your way out of whatever that was. So I'm very curious, mark Rearden, what is your Peter Teel paradox?

Mark Reardon [00:41:56] So, boy, this, this is a, this is a really interesting question. I think I have to think about it for just a second. So you want me to tell you what I believe that nobody else really agrees with?

Vance Crowe [00:42:08] Yeah,

Mark Reardon [00:42:09] I don't know where there's,

Vance Crowe [00:42:11] I'll give you mine. You want mine? And then you can think about it.

Mark Reardon [00:42:13] A yeah, yeah. Let me, let me see if I can get inspired here.

Vance Crowe [00:42:15] So I think, and now I've gotten people to agree with me, so I'm gonna have to come up with a new one. But mine has been, I think the state of Missouri should get together a pile of money and just put it in reserves for the day that the state of Illinois has to declare full on bankruptcy. And the day they do that, we should buy all of East St. Louis, all the way beyond east of Cahokia mounds and bring that back into Missouri, then use that corridor for all the manufacturing jobs that are going to have to come back. 'cause we're gonna reshore a whole bunch of industrial work when we realize that all of our raw goods are coming from China and we're completely held over a barrel from the way that Asia and the markets are. And so we aren't going to wanna put that in some other corridor. So you already have that industrial area, there's already a bunch of refineries, there's a ready population that that could work. And you also have what could turn into the Brooklyn of St. Louis. It could be East St. Louis. It could be looking onto the skyline of St. Louis.

Mark Reardon [00:43:12] Well, what you're doing there is you're getting creative, you're thinking about something that these elected people that I just mentioned should be talking about and taking a swing of the bat at. You know, I I, I love thinking like that. I think it's important. You've been on my radio show, you know, we've, we've talked about some of these things. The, you're, you're kind of catching me off guard here and on the spot, so I can't come up with something that, that's Bri, that's that brilliant Vance. That's pretty good. I love that idea, really. But what I, you know, I guess the, the one area, this is a broader area and it seemingly is one of those things where, where people don't agree with me, I don't feel that climate change is the massive threat to the human existence. That the St. Louis Post dispatch, the New York Times CNN and others feel, I think that I'm a Luke warmer. So I think climate change is real. I don't know how much we're causing it. I think that we have little, little to do with what's going, actually, no, lemme say climate change doesn't have anything to do with the fires in California. What has to do with the fires in California is lack of sound forest policies and things like that. But it's all nuanced. Does climate change have something to do with that? Sure. But we are told that there is no opposing view to climate change that is, can I cuss on this podcast?

Vance Crowe [00:44:23] Oh yeah, man, this is anything you want.

Mark Reardon [00:44:25] Bullshit. It's complete bullshit. I'm not an unreasonable person. You can have a conversation with me about things that are happening with the climate that are serious, but we are not gonna go away in 10 years. Greta Thunberg is an alarmist. Some of these things are crazy, but people buy into it. Give you a perfect example. We're in the Midwest here. We have tornadoes, massive tornadoes. So we're told time and time again that the, the changes to the climate from CO2 are increasing tornadoes, making them more deadly, completely false, not true. There are different factors, not unlike the fires, right? There are a lot more people, Joplin massive tornado. Would that development where that tornado took out those houses, w was that there 10 50? Well, that tornado took place maybe 10 years ago. Was that development there 15, 20 years ago? Probably not. There are more people remember, you're too young. It used to be kind of a joke that a tornado would just hit a trailer park, right? And, and that's the only, well, no, we have big developments in houses. We have a lot more development.

Vance Crowe [00:45:30] Oh yeah. The area that we're, yeah,

Mark Reardon [00:45:32] The, the, the climate change is driving different things and there are effects that we have, but tornadoes, hurricanes, while all these things, that's nonsense in my opinion. Now you're gonna have people that say it's settled science. I say bunk, it's not settled science. And by the way, I can provide you with scientists, climate scientists, PhDs, people who are very, very smart, that can offer you this different perspective. Which by the way, I think that perspective is needed because we have to talk about adaptation. We have to adapt to this, right? Because it's not going to just go away. We have real challenges with the climate, but I get concerned that if you just have monolithic thinking on that with no opposing view to say, eh, you know what, that's not factually true. Really, the science shows otherwise that that just sets us up for big failures.

Vance Crowe [00:46:21] Well, and it people also get put in the position that if you say, yes, I agree that this is true or this is happening, these, let's just say, let's just put a parameter up and say this is happening with climate change. What you do, you don't include in is what we ought to do about it. So people think, well, if you say this is true, now we ought to do these things. And you have to accept both at the same time. And those are totally separate things. Just because something is true doesn't mean it dictates what you should do in response to it.

Mark Reardon [00:46:49] That's, that's a great, and see, look, that's why I talk about these things because I think it's important to say, okay, what are we gonna do about it? I mentioned tornadoes. There's a guy named Richard Mueller who's a PhD, real smart guy from Berkeley. And he is someone, he's a physics professor who strongly believes that climate change is real. That we are driving climate change. But he will make the case that the number of severe tornadoes has actually gone down. It's not a scientific hypothesis, it's a conclusion based on observation. So you, you have to look at some of these things that are happening, but if you can't have real conversations and not be written off, because there are newspapers, editorial departments in this country, LA Times and others that say, we don't, we will not accept your view, your opposing different view. Well, how do we come up with solutions? You know, I philosophically believe that denying poor civilizations access to power, to electricity, to water, I think that's cruel. I think it's oppressive and I think it's outrageous. But for some reason, the climate alarmists get away with saying, we're not gonna have a planet. California's gonna slip into the ocean. What are we gonna do? Hurricanes sort of, they can say all of those things without being checked and they're never asked, Hey, wait a second, wouldn't there be some big, big populations in Africa or India or Asia that could really, really benefit from fossil fuels and having carbon energy?

Mark Reardon [00:48:21] The answer is yes. A lot better.

Vance Crowe [00:48:23] Yeah, a lot better than them cooking their food over charcoal Chicos. Right. Which is what they're doing now because

Mark Reardon [00:48:28] They don't, because I've been to Honduras, I've been to, you know, true poverty. We have poverty in this guy. Real poverty is people cooking with no power, electricity, they don't have running water. Absolutely. But why can't we have a conversation about that? I'm the guy who hates poor people and doesn't care about anyone because I'm a conservative, but I offer a different perspective on climate change than I'm just, you know, I'm a climate denier. I don't believe in science that, that, I just reject that thinking because I don't think that those are the types of conversations that, that are really productive and coming up with real solutions and answers. Like you kind of, you know, laid out here with, with St. Louis and with overall, well,

Vance Crowe [00:49:10] So I, you're, you're the, i I don't think I've ever talked about this on the podcast, but in the, when they did that thing with Amazon where they were like, Hey, bring Amazon here. And everybody was like tripping all over themselves. Here's my biggest issue right now as a person that like, I have some good ideas, but trying to get them into the political system, and they're not usually my ideas. I usually hear them from somebody else and I'm the person that delivers them. But like when that Amazon thing came in, I had the idea, or with a group of people that what we ought to do is instead of bending over backwards for Amazon, what we should do is create the dynamic that whether or not Amazon comes, we've increased the environment for the businesses to come here, regardless of whether it's Amazon or not. And one of the ideas was why don't we pick the lowest densely populated area in St. Louis, offer them space there and say, we will let the drones fly here. We're gonna change the FAA regulations and we're gonna make it as easy as possible for this to be the experimental place for you to have driverless cars and drones delivering things. Because that way, even if Amazon doesn't come in, every single agriculture company in, in the, in the United States would wanna come here overnight because they wanna have ready access to a population of people that know technical skills. And then they also need to be in an environment where they can practice these things. But these ideas, they were just thrown out and we decided we're gonna build a train. Well, you know,

Mark Reardon [00:50:35] Here's what's interesting, and if I, if you correct me if I'm wrong, one of the things that we talked about, and I had Vance on a podcast that we do at KM Oex that is sponsored by PNC Bank. And then we had a radio chat. But we were talking, wasn't it? You and I were talking about automation and how automation is gonna have an effect. And I think your example was if there are, you know, cars that don't have to be driven by actual people as much, you're not gonna have the need for Starbucks. There's gonna be all these implications. So Andrew Yang ran for president as a Democrat, right? He had a lot of kooky ideas, but you know what, that guy had some great ideas and he talked about things that we should be talking about in this country. Along the lines of what you're discussing. We don't have that. So we need that. You know, you're talking, we've talked already on this podcast about things that are more important than most of the politicians that come onto my show. So where are those ideas? Where are those discussions? I think some of it is because we have people in politics that don't really care about real solutions and real ideas, but we need those, you know, climate change is a great example. St. Louis in, in growing this region is a great example. Crime is pretty,

Vance Crowe [00:51:47] Lemme ask you a question, let me ask you a question. So would you recommend to your, you have a young child, will you recommend to them that they be involved in, in media or politics, the two areas that you intersect with?

Mark Reardon [00:52:00] Never. No way. Tell

Vance Crowe [00:52:02] Me about that. Why not?

Mark Reardon [00:52:03] Well, because I think politics are a joke and unfortunately media has headed in a direction that's really, really sad. And I think even talk show hosts like mine, which, you know, include the ability to have different opinions might not be around in the future. I, I, I wish more qualified good people would go into politics. But why would you, I mean, seriously, what's, what's the benefit? What's the benefit for someone who has a family, has a life, is smart, is productive, is making money, why would they want to go into politics? Well, some people wanna do it to help, right? And, and you have a civic duty and that's great. But when you see the headaches that come out of it, I think those good people that really should be in these positions are not inspired. And I get it.

Vance Crowe [00:52:46] I think the biggest thing, and we started in this place, it, that, that media has the potential to do is to, is to bring people together. Before we got on this, you were saying how you don't actually go down to the radio station now to do your show. You're, you're separated out. We have now all these people that are at their homes and whenever the coronavirus starts to wane and we get to be able to, we've gotta find a way to bring people back together so that they collide with one another and know that they're going to have to see that person next week, next month, next year. So that that way they're not fighting to the death. And that's something that I think media has the potential to do because they can draw people's attention to it.

Mark Reardon [00:53:27] Yeah, I, I try to draw people's attention to things like that. Let me, let me offer one example when it comes to it, it disappoints me when some people in my audience do not give, I guess have empathy for, for other people's stories and perspectives. So Senator Jamil Hasid, who's from, you know, north St. Louis, very liberal. She is someone that I profiled on Wick's profiles and I've gotten to know her. I consider a, a friend. I don't know her really well, but she grew up in a housing project, okay. And she saw violence all around her and her perspective. I've never seen, I, you know, white dude grew up in the suburbs, lower middle class, middle class. Then St. Louis maybe took a step up, but I've never seen some of the things that she's seen in her life with, with poverty, with crime, with a lack of education. So her, her position is extremely important. Now, she is gonna get pigeonhole as having crazy ideas and all that, but, and that's probably true. I think she's got some,

Vance Crowe [00:54:26] But

Mark Reardon [00:54:26] Why can't more people on my side say, you know what? You gotta, you gotta think about what that person has gone through and what they've experienced and what they've brought to the table. And I just wish people were a little bit more open-minded is sort of a, you know, an easy word to use. But I i I just wish people would think through things more often. Look, my mind's been changed on plenty of things over the years. I think that one of the positions I took early in my career was, you know, a more libertarian view on smoking in public, in, in public places, in, in restaurants. And that, and, and that was one of those things where opponents chipped away, chipped away, chipped away. I don't think there's many people, even smokers right now, who think we should be smoking inside restaurants in places. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:55:09] Remember that, that we used to have non, or we used to have smoking in non-smoking sections, airplanes, in restaurants,

Mark Reardon [00:55:15] Airplanes. You know, I'm old enough to remember that. So some, some of these things, you know, and, and I guess even with race, I don't know how to do it with race, but with gay marriage, my position was solidified because I knew people who were gay when I was 15, 16, 17. And guess what, they were normal people. They were regular people. I just like me. So I had relationships with them. More and more families over the decades have realized that they have sons and daughters who are gay. So that has opened up their eyes to different experiences and made them feel differently. If you don't have those experiences with people and if you don't have experiences with people of, of, I'm, I think diversity is a great thing. I think forced diversity is not a good thing. I think that moves us in a different direction. I I'll tell you one story here, and, and, and I think this is the story I haven't even shared on the air, but I have a, a friend who, who was my roommate at Miz Zoo, freshman year potluck. My, my friend Brandon, my roommate, I'm a white kid from West St. Louis County. I take my roommate potluck in the dorm. He shows up, he's a black dude, big, he's not that big, but in my mind, he was a big black dude from the Central West End. We had nothing in common. And we became very good friends. And, you know, we, we shared, I think different, different experiences over the years, but obviously things have changed with, with everything that's happened in the aftermath of Mike Brown and George Floyd. So we had dinner recently and I shared a story with him and I, I, I had a perspective that, that I thought was important, but he brought a perspective that was very important.

Mark Reardon [00:56:50] So there was a, an NBA all-star named Vic Oladipo, who's very close friends with a guy that I work with. Vic came into Bush Stadium last year. My, my daughter was four years old and we were taking pictures. And Alexa, my daughter, who really, she, she's, you know, she's innocent. She's a kid. She kind of backed away from the picture because Vic was a big tall black guy. And she goes, the only brown person that that I, that I like is Abby, who's someone that she goes to school with, right? Well, in my mind, she's a kid, she doesn't know. I tried to tell her, look, try to have a lesson there. So I shared this story with, with my, my roommate Brandon, who's black. And you know, his response was, was helpful. He said, well, you know, you need to have more black people over for dinner at your house. So she's exposed, and he is right, he's absolutely right. He's been in my house for a party. He was one of two black people in my house at the time for the party. So that's important for me to recognize that that is sort of a mission that I have as a parent to make sure that, especially since I have friends of different races and, and colors and all these things, to make sure that there's exposure because that's what's gonna change. My kids, I have 20, 23 vans. They got a 5-year-old, too bad, bad planning, right? So my kids, my grandparents were very racist. Unfortunately, I remember things from my childhood. I, I recognized that when I was a kid. I think generationally, Barack Obama recognized this, that we are less racist.

Mark Reardon [00:58:22] We've made progress. But I feel in 2020 people say we haven't. And I, I think we have to keep trying to make progress. But what we're doing right now is setting us backwards is one of my concerns. And that's, I can only do my part with, with my daughter and with my show. But boy, we're, we're in a dangerous spot if both sides can't listen at least a little bit to the other side and, and try to come up with things, and this is an evil word compromise. You can't use that word anymore. It's bad. So,

Vance Crowe [00:58:52] Yeah, and I, I often wonder, you know, if you go back and read Thomas Jefferson, he talks about hating the media and how it's a total waste of time. And then, but at the same time, you need it, right? You need to be able to have these voices that are, that are describing different things from what's around you and trying to get different ideas. And, and I, that's what I think of when you're describing, you know, needing to expose your daughter to new things is trying to ex I was like, I wonder what ideas I expose myself to, or should expose myself to more. And I, I, anyway, I'm, I'm at a, I'm at a total loss on what to do. I think just having good conversations is probably the best thing.

Mark Reardon [00:59:30] Well, this was a good conversation and I felt like, you know, it's interesting, I do different little segments on my radio show, but it's never an extended long hour conversation, which sometimes I'm jealous about. So I'm thinking, man, that's a lot of time. But we could have gone on for, you know, a day here I think.

Vance Crowe [00:59:46] Well, mark Rearden, you have always been a guy that I've looked up to ever since we had that exchange in your, in your radio studio. I'm always glad to hear your voice on the radio. It feels to me like a vo the voice or a voice of St. Louis. And I hope you keep getting there, talking with people that you respect but disagree with. I think it's deeply, deeply important.

Mark Reardon [01:00:07] Well, I, and I agree and I share mutual respect and let's talk on my radio show about some of your ideas that you have because the, it's, the politicians aren't gonna talk about 'em. We gotta talk about 'em.

Vance Crowe [01:00:15] Hey, that'd be a blast. I'd love it. Well, thanks Mark. I know you got other stuff you gotta get to, so thank you so much, man.

Mark Reardon [01:00:21] Thank you.