EarzUp! | The Legendary Disney Band Leader Stan Freese Joins Us - LIVE!

[00:00:00] So play a little intro music.

[00:00:02] I don't know if you're a big music fan, Stan, but this might...

[00:00:06] I don't know. OK, here we go.

[00:00:10] It's time for the show that brings the magic

[00:00:13] right to your speakers.

[00:00:16] EarzUp!

[00:00:19] What's going on, everybody?

[00:00:21] EarzUp Podcast, we are back in the studio.

[00:00:24] And let me tell you something.

[00:00:25] My nerves are shot.

[00:00:28] I have done more this week to plan for a show than I even think when Roley was on.

[00:00:34] But I'm just probably more nervous, I think.

[00:00:37] I don't know why.

[00:00:38] But we have the great legendary Stan Freese on the show with us today.

[00:00:43] And I read his book, which is which is a weighty tome.

[00:00:48] It is over 400 pages.

[00:00:51] It's called Music, Mayhem and the Mouths.

[00:00:54] My Too Bizarre Life.

[00:00:56] And I tell you what, Stan, welcome to the show and your wife, Tara.

[00:01:00] Welcome to the show. Both of you.

[00:01:01] We're just going to get right into it.

[00:01:03] Usually I like to flutter around a little bit, but, you know,

[00:01:07] you're too important.

[00:01:07] You don't need to hear all my commercials.

[00:01:09] We got it. We got to do beforehand.

[00:01:11] So we had we had a Roley Crump on.

[00:01:15] God, I was a couple of years ago before the pandemic, Eric.

[00:01:18] So what was it? Yeah, yeah, it was.

[00:01:20] 17? I forgot.

[00:01:23] No, I don't. I think it was later than that.

[00:01:25] But OK. And I read his book.

[00:01:27] It's kind of a cute story, I believe, as well.

[00:01:30] Right. And I will put his book right next to yours, Stan,

[00:01:33] as far as readability and conversational.

[00:01:38] I'm not a big reader, but I read your entire book cover to cover, and it's great.

[00:01:43] It's fantastic.

[00:01:44] You have this way of writing

[00:01:46] and compiling your stories that is just so easy to read and conversational.

[00:01:51] Oh, great. How long were you working on this?

[00:01:53] Four years. Yeah, four years on and off.

[00:01:55] Wow. That's a long time.

[00:02:02] Yeah, I mean, it's wonderful.

[00:02:04] And, you know, look, not much gets me to laugh.

[00:02:08] I'm too cynical. I'm too critical.

[00:02:11] But I'm I'm like laughing out loud at this book.

[00:02:13] And my wife's going, what are you laughing at?

[00:02:16] Because it's weird. Why am I?

[00:02:17] You know, it's not my joke. Why am I laughing?

[00:02:20] And I'm like, because this guy's funny.

[00:02:22] You know, you just you have some quips and you have a way about you.

[00:02:25] And we'll get into that a little bit.

[00:02:27] But I want to talk to you because your journey through Disney history,

[00:02:32] through not only opening Walt Disney World down in Florida with the band,

[00:02:36] but then coming to Disneyland, it all centers around the tuba.

[00:02:41] And your story is is probably well told by now.

[00:02:44] But I would love to hear the story from you, how you got involved

[00:02:46] playing the tuba, because it doesn't really feel like an instrument.

[00:02:50] You know, a child would want to play.

[00:02:53] OK, so I grew up in Edina, Minnesota.

[00:02:58] And when I was in fourth grade,

[00:03:01] the the band director from the junior high came and talked to the assembly

[00:03:08] and he showed us all the different instruments and, you know, said

[00:03:12] that later on, you guys can pick what one you want.

[00:03:15] And so I naturally wanted the tuba because when my dad was a band director

[00:03:19] and I was little, he he put me in the sousaphone

[00:03:24] and marched me around for fun with the students.

[00:03:28] And so, you know, it kind of went from there.

[00:03:31] And your friends bet you some money.

[00:03:33] Oh, yeah, that's what happened.

[00:03:37] He Chris Globe bet me 50 cents that I wouldn't do it.

[00:03:41] You know, that was a lot of money back then.

[00:03:43] Yeah. So anyhow, you know, that's the end of that.

[00:03:48] Yeah. And that's how you got into the band.

[00:03:49] They were just handing out instruments and they're like, whoever wants to play,

[00:03:53] whoever has an interest, just grab the instrument and we'll teach you.

[00:03:56] More or less. Man, you know, that's so opposite of my experience.

[00:04:01] I was maybe third or fourth grade and I wanted to be in the band

[00:04:04] at the elementary school.

[00:04:05] And then they got us all in the multipurpose room

[00:04:08] and they played tapes and they gave us sheets of paper and they said,

[00:04:12] determine which one, which notes are sharp and which notes are flat

[00:04:17] with no training, with no like, hey, here's a primer.

[00:04:21] And so I failed because I don't know.

[00:04:23] I'm hearing it's like a hearing test.

[00:04:26] I don't I guess I don't know.

[00:04:27] So I'm just guessing.

[00:04:29] And I wasn't allowed in the band.

[00:04:31] I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:33] I'm like, OK.

[00:04:34] And then, you know, later on in middle school, I'm like, hey, Dad,

[00:04:37] I think I want to do the band. I want to play the drums. He goes, no.

[00:04:40] Yeah, he's Greek.

[00:04:41] He goes, you're going to play the clarinet

[00:04:43] because you can play a lot of Greek songs on the clarinet.

[00:04:45] And I said, I don't want to do that.

[00:04:47] But I ended up playing the clarinet.

[00:04:49] So there's it's a very different story.

[00:04:51] I made no money, pissed my dad off and I had to play an instrument.

[00:04:55] I didn't want to play. Yeah.

[00:04:58] What could be worse?

[00:04:59] Yeah, I know. Right.

[00:05:00] No wonder I didn't really learn anything.

[00:05:03] But you had very supportive parents growing up as opposed to to mine.

[00:05:09] And it sounds like your dad and your mom really encouraged you to to play along.

[00:05:12] And you came from a musical family.

[00:05:15] How was that environment growing up in a family that was like, OK,

[00:05:18] with this giant loud horn wrapped around you?

[00:05:21] They were cool.

[00:05:22] Well, what we would do is my dad

[00:05:27] would take a cornet, a beginning cornet solo

[00:05:31] and transcribe it for tuba because the tuba solos back then,

[00:05:37] there were very few that were published that were exciting.

[00:05:41] So that's kind of how that happened.

[00:05:43] And then, like I say, Keith Critchlow bet me 50 cents

[00:05:48] and put them together. And there you go.

[00:05:51] I love that. Yeah.

[00:05:52] And you're speaking of laughing at your book, this paragraph,

[00:05:56] you talk about your dad reinvigorating himself on the long days,

[00:06:00] driving around.

[00:06:01] Dad would periodically get out of his car, open the hood, grab a spark plug.

[00:06:06] Shock the hell out of himself and then keep on driving.

[00:06:10] Yeah, that's what he was in high school.

[00:06:12] And he was going in.

[00:06:13] He was in school every day, but he was playing at night

[00:06:17] in one of the little towns next to it.

[00:06:19] So naturally, he'd fall asleep.

[00:06:20] Sure. You know, what he would do is just get out of the car, grab a spark plug,

[00:06:26] knock him on his butt and then keep going.

[00:06:29] I mean, that's that's that's I'm proud for doing that.

[00:06:34] It's all guilt of me.

[00:06:35] Yeah, right. Yeah.

[00:06:36] It's a synthetic caffeine, I guess.

[00:06:39] See, nowadays you could just go to 7-Eleven and get a mini thin

[00:06:41] and you're fine like you don't have to, you know.

[00:06:45] And then the next line or the next paragraph under that,

[00:06:48] which made me funny, which made me laugh as well.

[00:06:50] Mom was a talented vocalist and pianist, but her real passion was basketball.

[00:06:55] The most unexpected combination of words

[00:06:59] I think I've ever read.

[00:07:00] I love that.

[00:07:00] And you just talk about your mom draining threes all over the place.

[00:07:03] Like, that's awesome.

[00:07:05] Yeah. Oh, she was a basketball player, boy.

[00:07:07] And she's only what?

[00:07:09] Yes, five foot two.

[00:07:11] God. But she was fast.

[00:07:14] Sure. She's why she's like the Scotty Pippen of the Midwest.

[00:07:17] Yeah. So this is fun.

[00:07:19] So Stan's mom,

[00:07:22] Stan goes out back there and she's you know, at this point,

[00:07:26] she's 90, 90 years old or so, and she's still living in her house

[00:07:31] and she's got her basketball hoop outside the house

[00:07:34] and she goes out there and she plays basketball at night.

[00:07:37] And Stan's like, Mom, why are you going out there at night?

[00:07:40] And she said, Well, look at me.

[00:07:42] They'll think I'm crazy if they watch me in the daytime.

[00:07:47] Well, mom, what do you think they're going to think of you?

[00:07:49] They'd see you doing that at nighttime, you know?

[00:07:52] So I love that story.

[00:07:54] I love that that anecdote, because it's very

[00:07:58] it's very prim and proper on the one hand, but also rebellious

[00:08:01] on the underside when no one can see it.

[00:08:03] Properly rebellious. Yeah, exactly. I like that.

[00:08:06] I feel that that sort of sort of runs through Stan and run through your life,

[00:08:11] your career at Disney.

[00:08:12] I want to get in some of the practical jokes you guys played.

[00:08:15] But you went through, you know, the whole I don't know if it's a standard band

[00:08:19] child or you went you played in the Rose Parade.

[00:08:22] Oh, yeah. Sakes. I mean, 19, 1956 going into 1957.

[00:08:27] I was 12 years old and they had me in the high school band marching.

[00:08:32] And it was back then it was six miles.

[00:08:35] And I had this big con sousaphone.

[00:08:38] And the band director would take the band out

[00:08:42] for weeks before that parade and marches around to get us in shape,

[00:08:47] which is a great idea, except it was winter.

[00:08:50] But now, yeah, so it was a lot of fun, you know?

[00:08:55] Was that your first time coming to California on that trip?

[00:08:58] Yep, it was. I bet I was on Lawrence Welk.

[00:09:02] But that was about the same time you're 14 when you're on your lunch.

[00:09:05] Well, I think it was after.

[00:09:06] OK, I guess I was after that.

[00:09:10] Look, if Tara says it's after it's after, you know, you don't argue with her.

[00:09:14] Yeah, I know. I've heard this story so many times.

[00:09:16] I think I was there.

[00:09:19] Well, you got it down, Pat, I'll tell you.

[00:09:21] You know, you're doing you're doing great.

[00:09:23] So you're on Lawrence Welk.

[00:09:25] You're sort of gaining populator.

[00:09:26] You were obviously already very good at the tuba.

[00:09:29] Is that is that your work ethic showing or is how much of that

[00:09:33] is natural talent versus the love of the tuba?

[00:09:37] The love of of music?

[00:09:39] Well, it was a combination of both.

[00:09:42] You know, I love the sousaphone,

[00:09:46] but, you know, it was a combination of both, I would say.

[00:09:50] OK, I love that.

[00:09:51] I have the love, but I don't have the work ethic.

[00:09:54] I'm trying to play the bass guitar for like five years

[00:09:57] and I just have to use tabs because I can't read music.

[00:10:00] And I'm like, I'm I'm on a wall.

[00:10:02] I'm frustrated.

[00:10:03] And then I realized, oh, because I'm not trying hard enough.

[00:10:05] Like I'm not I'm not actually playing.

[00:10:07] I'm going, oh, I get the song sort of sort of correct.

[00:10:10] It's fine. Let's move on to something else.

[00:10:12] I always want to learn the next thing, but I have a really hard time

[00:10:15] buckling down and learning one thing at a time because I get tired of it easily.

[00:10:20] And I don't know what that means about me.

[00:10:22] That's great. Well, it means that you're smart and you want to just keep moving on.

[00:10:26] See, Terrence, I'm smart.

[00:10:28] There you go. Yeah, I'm sure.

[00:10:30] Yeah. Eric, what do you think of that?

[00:10:32] I'm going to clip that and we're going to play that.

[00:10:33] And the new the new intro to the show is Stan telling me I'm smart.

[00:10:38] What I found cool in your story

[00:10:41] is you were doing well enough as a musician in college.

[00:10:45] You bought a car like you were doing so well gigging.

[00:10:50] But you bought yourself a car in college, no less than college.

[00:10:54] Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty great, man.

[00:10:56] Did you know at that point you wanted to be doing music full time

[00:10:59] or was it still just kind of like something you were just good at?

[00:11:01] And you know, I mean, it was full time.

[00:11:04] That was in my consciousness.

[00:11:06] OK. And the car that I bought was a Corvette.

[00:11:09] Oh, so, dude, it's a very college kid car.

[00:11:14] I love it. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

[00:11:16] And this is why I put I put Stan spiritually with Rolly Crump,

[00:11:20] because Rolly was kind of a badass.

[00:11:22] And, you know, if Rolly bought a car for it would be a friggin Corvette.

[00:11:28] I mean, that story of him.

[00:11:29] I don't know if you know this, Stan, but he has a story about how you took

[00:11:32] some gal, some secretary at Disneyland on a date once.

[00:11:35] I think it was a date. I forget.

[00:11:37] But he dropped her off.

[00:11:38] They were riding his motorcycle and he rode into the office

[00:11:43] and dropped her off at her desk.

[00:11:45] That's ridiculous. And then rode out.

[00:11:49] Dude, that's my kind of guy.

[00:11:50] That's exactly what I'm saying, man.

[00:11:53] The whole thing. I'm just going, oh, this dude, if we could get

[00:11:56] if we can get Stan and Rolly together in a room one day.

[00:11:59] I know we can't, unfortunately, but it just yeah.

[00:12:02] The two minds think alike, ma'am.

[00:12:06] Man, that's great.

[00:12:07] You're cruising through life.

[00:12:08] You go to Edison, I believe is Edison High.

[00:12:13] I would be Dinah as a student.

[00:12:15] We lived in this suburb there called Edina,

[00:12:18] but I taught at Edison High School at the high school band.

[00:12:23] Yeah. You were the marching band leader and you document a little bit

[00:12:26] about how you sort of came and revamped that music program.

[00:12:31] And I think that's where your love really kind of shines through as far as the

[00:12:36] it's almost like the world outside of the music.

[00:12:38] It's the music itself is good.

[00:12:39] But then the sort of community surrounding the music,

[00:12:43] especially igniting the passion and music with the young kids.

[00:12:47] It was almost like a cooler version of the bad news bears were like,

[00:12:50] you came through and you tightened everybody up.

[00:12:53] You gave them uniforms that they could breathe in. And

[00:12:58] did that did that sort of go, OK, this is the direction I want to go.

[00:13:01] And I want to teach people about music also.

[00:13:04] Yeah, exactly.

[00:13:07] And the Edison thing was really great because they

[00:13:11] hadn't had a band director there for a couple of two or three years.

[00:13:15] They had a math teacher that would come in and

[00:13:19] teach the band.

[00:13:21] And that didn't you know, that was what it was.

[00:13:24] But so I was like a welcome sight, which made my life easy.

[00:13:29] You know, then that's also a common thread,

[00:13:33] I think, where you just it feels like every job you go into,

[00:13:36] especially at Disney, that and I'm sure that it wasn't this easy,

[00:13:39] but it felt like people like, oh, Stan.

[00:13:42] Yeah, we have confidence in Stan. He can do this thing.

[00:13:46] Yeah, that's right.

[00:13:48] Just because I was a great talker,

[00:13:52] Vince people of anything.

[00:13:53] Yeah. You're a good salesperson.

[00:13:55] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

[00:13:57] You're welcome.

[00:13:59] And I know we're sort of, you know, jumping through if I look,

[00:14:01] if I had time, I would go through every word of this with you.

[00:14:03] But, you know, I don't want to keep you too long.

[00:14:07] But. I just want to hit some highlights before we get to the park stuff.

[00:14:11] You toured the Soviet Union, I think it's like 10 weeks or something like that.

[00:14:15] Right. With the Minnesota band.

[00:14:18] With the Minnesota band. Yeah.

[00:14:19] And what struck me for that is like it didn't seem too far away

[00:14:24] from like the House Committee of Un-American Affairs or whatever

[00:14:27] that whole rigmarole was like the Red Scare and like the late 50s and early 60s.

[00:14:32] Did that thought ever come to you where it's like, hey,

[00:14:34] maybe I'm spending some time in Russia?

[00:14:36] I might be labeled, you know, some sort of communist

[00:14:40] or the FBI is going to have a file on me or not at all.

[00:14:45] They had never had a tuba soloist over there.

[00:14:49] They'd had tuba players, obviously, and all the orchestras.

[00:14:53] But a tuba soloist was it was not happening.

[00:14:58] And so when I came in and did solos on a tuba

[00:15:02] and technical stuff that got their attention.

[00:15:07] OK, yeah, because that would concern me for that's me.

[00:15:10] I would be worried like, oh, what's everybody going to think when I come home?

[00:15:13] Then I love Russia.

[00:15:15] That was some sort of red.

[00:15:18] You know what I mean?

[00:15:20] I'll say a funnier one.

[00:15:22] When I took the tuba that day

[00:15:25] and I came home and told my folks,

[00:15:28] my dad was very encouraging and I found out later

[00:15:31] it was because he thought for sure I would quit.

[00:15:37] Because there's no headstand.

[00:15:39] But, you know, so so he was very supportive.

[00:15:42] And so was my mom thinking that I would do it for a couple of months

[00:15:46] and then wise up, you know?

[00:15:48] Yeah, it's very easy to support your kids when you think that

[00:15:51] they're just not going to follow through with it because they'll see.

[00:15:55] They'll see. But you showed them you were in Russia, for God's sake, your room.

[00:15:59] Again, look, I'm going to say this a lot during this show, but buy this book

[00:16:04] and read it because there is a great story of Stan's time in Russia

[00:16:10] and stand with the KGB bugged your room.

[00:16:13] Yes. Can you tell me what you did to get back at them, please?

[00:16:17] Nothing. Nothing.

[00:16:18] You find out until the next day.

[00:16:21] But they might my interpreters,

[00:16:25] who I became close friends with, said, you know, we're not bugging your room

[00:16:29] because we expect some kind of a secret to come out about atom bombs.

[00:16:34] We're bugging it because we want to know what you thought of the meals

[00:16:38] or what we thought, what I thought of their hospitality.

[00:16:43] You know, used it as that.

[00:16:45] Tell them about the dead spring, though.

[00:16:47] Oh, yeah. OK, get this.

[00:16:49] Yeah. So I go in the first day and there's a beautiful gold

[00:16:55] lamé bedspread.

[00:16:58] And I said to the guy I was rooming with, I said, man,

[00:17:02] if this is America, I would swipe that damn thing.

[00:17:07] And we all laugh.

[00:17:08] Then we went to eat and came back.

[00:17:10] The bedspread was gone. Oh, no.

[00:17:13] They didn't trust you. Oh, no.

[00:17:16] Yeah. They beat me to it.

[00:17:18] They beat you to it, man. Yeah.

[00:17:21] Oh, that's funny. Yeah, that's amazing, man.

[00:17:23] So the word spreads in America, I suppose.

[00:17:27] When you come home, you get you you get invited to the White House

[00:17:31] to meet Nixon and perform in the Rose Garden.

[00:17:34] How was that? How was that moment?

[00:17:37] Actually, the white unbeknownst to me,

[00:17:41] the White House people were really interested in the tour.

[00:17:45] And we didn't know that at the time, but they wanted to know exactly.

[00:17:49] You know, they were it was all a big deal to them.

[00:17:53] They wanted to know the ins and outs and whatever.

[00:17:56] And so they could do that by by listening, by watching me.

[00:18:02] They were able to get a little better grasp on how Americans thought.

[00:18:08] Russian food was

[00:18:10] very, very delicious.

[00:18:14] Stan, we need you to get a recipe for Borscht, please, and bring it back.

[00:18:19] I mean, that may kind of make sense.

[00:18:20] You know, you're on a ten week, I believe it was tour,

[00:18:24] you know, probably more probably more time spent there than anybody

[00:18:28] in the White House. It was like a research project. Yeah.

[00:18:32] Well, let me tell you, the interpreters after I got to know them, they said,

[00:18:36] you know.

[00:18:38] We need you to explain what some of these slang,

[00:18:43] American slang words are.

[00:18:45] So I said, well, okay, here we go.

[00:18:50] You know?

[00:18:50] X-rated words.

[00:18:51] Oh yeah, shit, yes.

[00:18:52] They were all, you know.

[00:18:54] Like what?

[00:18:55] Can you give me one?

[00:18:57] What?

[00:18:58] Can you give me one?

[00:18:59] What was a word that needed help with?

[00:19:01] Oh.

[00:19:02] The F word.

[00:19:02] Yeah, the F word.

[00:19:03] Really?

[00:19:04] Oh wow.

[00:19:05] What is F, oh my God.

[00:19:08] I love that.

[00:19:10] I absolutely love that.

[00:19:11] I have a little bit that I stole from your YouTube page

[00:19:15] of audio of the Rose Garden concert.

[00:19:20] Can I play that real fast?

[00:19:21] Sure.

[00:19:22] All right.

[00:19:23] For you, the Carnival of Venice, Mr. Stanford Freed.

[00:19:28] Oh.

[00:19:42] That sounds too hard for me.

[00:20:00] It sounds impossible.

[00:20:02] I can't do that.

[00:20:05] I couldn't do that, man.

[00:20:06] Sounds great.

[00:20:07] I'm glad you have that, you know,

[00:20:08] because reading your book, I'm like,

[00:20:10] I wish I could find some of these.

[00:20:11] And you know, it just turns out you just had to use Google.

[00:20:16] In your book, you talk, you come back from that trip

[00:20:19] and you mentioned that life sort of felt small.

[00:20:24] How did you wrestle with that?

[00:20:25] You felt like there was more going on,

[00:20:27] you just didn't necessarily feel the same joy?

[00:20:30] Is that what it was or what was going on

[00:20:32] when you came back from that trip?

[00:20:34] You know, I don't recall having that emotion,

[00:20:38] but when I got back, you know,

[00:20:42] it was all of a sudden I was a star for a couple of weeks.

[00:20:47] Yeah.

[00:20:49] Yeah, right.

[00:20:50] Yeah, carnival of Venice at the White House.

[00:20:53] That'll do it to you.

[00:20:54] Yeah, that did it.

[00:20:57] Okay.

[00:20:59] That was that.

[00:21:00] Okay, all right, that makes sense.

[00:21:01] And so eventually you moved to California,

[00:21:04] we're gonna fast forward a bit,

[00:21:05] and you get the call to go to Disney World.

[00:21:08] Yes.

[00:21:10] How did that call come about

[00:21:11] and what was that transition like for you

[00:21:13] as a Midwest kid bouncing from California

[00:21:15] and then shuttling off to Florida?

[00:21:18] Well, you know, I went out to California

[00:21:21] after the Russian trip

[00:21:23] because I wanted to be a studio musician.

[00:21:27] So that would be the only place in the world

[00:21:30] to be a studio player.

[00:21:32] And so that's what I did.

[00:21:35] You know, I was wanting to be mostly a studio player.

[00:21:40] When did Jim Christensen call you?

[00:21:42] Yeah, oh yeah.

[00:21:42] So Jim Christensen,

[00:21:45] who was the band director of Disney World?

[00:21:50] Disney World.

[00:21:51] It hadn't been open that long,

[00:21:53] but he came from California, Disneyland,

[00:21:56] and went down there.

[00:21:57] Okay.

[00:21:59] So he found out about me being in California

[00:22:03] all of a sudden and asked me

[00:22:04] if I wanted to go down to Disney World

[00:22:07] and be the band leader.

[00:22:09] And I just went, yeah, of course.

[00:22:12] So that was fun.

[00:22:15] It all worked just great.

[00:22:17] I really had a pretty charmed situation

[00:22:21] in most of my life.

[00:22:23] So, and it's still that way, lucky me.

[00:22:26] But you know, so it worked.

[00:22:30] Yeah, well, you know,

[00:22:31] and you talk about,

[00:22:34] when you're telling the stories

[00:22:36] about being in Florida,

[00:22:37] getting the band sort of ready for the opening,

[00:22:41] the whole time I'm going,

[00:22:42] what is this kid doing in Florida?

[00:22:44] It's hot in Florida.

[00:22:45] And Muggy, like what's going on?

[00:22:47] What's the band schedule like in Florida,

[00:22:50] you know, as far as the heat and the humidity,

[00:22:53] how was navigating all of that?

[00:22:55] That had to have been really tough.

[00:22:57] It was tough.

[00:22:58] That's why I left after two years,

[00:22:59] came out to California.

[00:23:02] Smart decision.

[00:23:05] Talking about changing the shoes every day.

[00:23:06] Oh yeah, I mean, it was so hot and humid

[00:23:10] that our uniforms, by the end of the day,

[00:23:14] we'd sweat through our white shoes

[00:23:16] and, you know, sweat through most of our uniform

[00:23:20] and just had to switch, change uniforms every day.

[00:23:24] So it was wild, man.

[00:23:26] It was just hot and humid.

[00:23:27] Dude.

[00:23:28] And yeah.

[00:23:29] Bless the laundry service at Disney World.

[00:23:33] I mean.

[00:23:34] Yeah.

[00:23:35] That's for sure.

[00:23:36] Now how your musicians,

[00:23:38] the ones that you first hired,

[00:23:40] they quit after-

[00:23:42] Oh yeah, get this.

[00:23:44] So Disney World.

[00:23:45] Yeah.

[00:23:46] We'd been auditioning musicians for six months for that job.

[00:23:50] And so once the job started

[00:23:52] and everybody found out that it was a drag

[00:23:56] because you were hot and humid

[00:23:58] and marching with a uniform on.

[00:24:01] Right.

[00:24:01] So, you know, it was like no good.

[00:24:05] Yeah.

[00:24:06] So I quit.

[00:24:07] Well, they'll, they quit.

[00:24:08] Yeah, oh yeah, the musicians quit for sure.

[00:24:11] Yeah.

[00:24:12] And then all of a sudden,

[00:24:14] where I had had a lot of time

[00:24:17] to go find musicians around the country,

[00:24:19] all of a sudden we didn't have time

[00:24:21] and they were dropping like flies.

[00:24:24] So one of the things I did was to go to Washington DC

[00:24:29] and get the musicians from the service bands

[00:24:34] that were ready to retire.

[00:24:36] And so I found that out through people

[00:24:39] and then I would talk to them and say,

[00:24:42] hey, once you're done with this,

[00:24:44] why don't I hire you and give you all this money

[00:24:47] and we go to Disney World.

[00:24:48] And they were already used to hot, humid and-

[00:24:52] Keeping their hair short?

[00:24:53] Yeah, keeping their hair short.

[00:24:54] Back then that was the deal.

[00:24:56] You know, people didn't want to cut their hair back then

[00:24:59] because of the Beatles.

[00:25:00] And so-

[00:25:02] That's what it was?

[00:25:03] Wow.

[00:25:05] Yeah, it was nuts.

[00:25:06] That's crazy, man.

[00:25:08] Okay, well it sounds like you had a tough time,

[00:25:10] which is what I would expect.

[00:25:11] Not everyone's gonna be cut out

[00:25:12] for marching around in Florida,

[00:25:14] playing multiple shows a day.

[00:25:17] And one thing I did learn from your book

[00:25:19] is what I didn't know is that the bands

[00:25:22] at both Disneyland and Disney World

[00:25:25] divide up into, you call them breakdown groups.

[00:25:28] So some of the bands that you see playing around

[00:25:32] are just members of the band, not just,

[00:25:34] but you know, and they're just playing in atmosphere,

[00:25:36] jazz or whatever.

[00:25:39] I had, I would have a Dixieland band

[00:25:42] because everybody likes Dixieland.

[00:25:44] Sure.

[00:25:45] And that was one of the groups.

[00:25:47] And another one of the groups was a sax quartet.

[00:25:51] And I got music from Jim Christensen for that.

[00:25:55] So they would go out on the street dressed as policemen

[00:25:59] and they were great saxophone players.

[00:26:02] And so it gave us yet another new kind of idea

[00:26:07] for our guests to,

[00:26:09] because they had never seen something like that.

[00:26:12] So it worked.

[00:26:14] What's the, this might sound like a dumb question

[00:26:16] and I apologize, but what is the,

[00:26:20] what's the average talent level

[00:26:23] of a band member in a Disney band?

[00:26:26] It's really tough.

[00:26:28] Yeah?

[00:26:29] They've got to be able to sight read like crazy.

[00:26:32] Then they have to be able to work at Disney.

[00:26:35] They have to be able to play Dixie, you know, and jam.

[00:26:40] And, you know, just,

[00:26:43] so you couldn't find a lot of people

[00:26:46] that were able to do both of those things.

[00:26:48] So I was lucky, but it had to work, I had it.

[00:26:51] Yeah.

[00:26:52] You talk a lot in your book about traveling around

[00:26:54] and weeks at a time finding people

[00:26:57] to come and fill a gig or two, you know, or a slot or two.

[00:27:00] And it sounds like you had an ear for it

[00:27:03] because luckily a lot of people seem to work out.

[00:27:05] Yeah.

[00:27:06] Lucky.

[00:27:07] Yeah, for sure.

[00:27:08] Well, I mean, there's talent too, you know,

[00:27:09] you can't forget that.

[00:27:12] But yeah, and I don't know what it is, but you know,

[00:27:14] about when I see people in a band,

[00:27:16] I think that's the only type of music they can play

[00:27:19] or they're good at.

[00:27:20] And I don't know what that is about me,

[00:27:21] but that's what I think.

[00:27:22] So I think, okay, there's a marching band.

[00:27:24] There's no way they can play, you know,

[00:27:28] the banjo or you know what I mean, to do this kind of thing.

[00:27:29] But that's what I think a lot of people don't understand

[00:27:32] maybe about musicians,

[00:27:33] or maybe it's just my own sort of weird anxieties.

[00:27:36] But yeah, to be,

[00:27:37] it sounds like to be in one of these bands

[00:27:39] in the Disneyland band or Disney World band,

[00:27:42] you have to be top at what you're doing.

[00:27:44] You have to be top notch and at a variety

[00:27:47] of even instruments too, I would imagine.

[00:27:49] Yep, exactly.

[00:27:51] So they would, what we call double.

[00:27:54] So a trombone player then would double on the baritone

[00:27:58] and oftentimes included the sousaphone or the tuba.

[00:28:02] And then the woodwind players had to own

[00:28:07] and play piccolo, flute, clarinet, alto, tenor and bari.

[00:28:13] And it's hard finding people that were good at all those,

[00:28:17] but I did, you know,

[00:28:19] and it was called doubling back then.

[00:28:22] So I would have to find somebody that could do all that.

[00:28:26] And it was tough, it was tough.

[00:28:29] Yeah, yeah, I can imagine.

[00:28:30] And then, you know, not faint from the heat.

[00:28:33] Yeah.

[00:28:35] My wife and I went there in September

[00:28:39] and I remember man walking around even at midnight,

[00:28:42] you know, we had a big, you know,

[00:28:44] a glass of rose or whatever at the pool.

[00:28:46] I'm like, this is hot.

[00:28:47] I can't, I almost can't do this.

[00:28:48] Where you're in a pool at the resort going,

[00:28:50] am I swimming or is it just humidity outside?

[00:28:53] I can't really tell.

[00:28:55] Yeah, that's about it.

[00:28:57] I couldn't imagine doing what you guys did.

[00:28:58] That's insane.

[00:29:00] That's craziness, man.

[00:29:01] That is absolutely craziness.

[00:29:03] You have some really good stories

[00:29:04] about opening Disney World and specifically,

[00:29:07] we don't have to get into it,

[00:29:08] but specifically the pigeon incident

[00:29:10] that you talked about where they used to release pigeons

[00:29:14] and one didn't make it.

[00:29:16] Oh no.

[00:29:17] Yeah, well, so they would do that at the retreat ceremony.

[00:29:22] So I would have the band in town square

[00:29:25] standing up around the American flag

[00:29:28] and then our security people would come,

[00:29:30] take the flag down, they had uniforms

[00:29:32] and then we would play some patriotic music

[00:29:35] and it was just a nice little patriotic 15 minutes,

[00:29:40] you know?

[00:29:41] Is that where you released the pigeon?

[00:29:42] Oh yeah, so yes, yeah.

[00:29:44] So anyhow, part of that was we had a bunch of white pigeons

[00:29:51] in a cart, enclosed cart and then halfway through,

[00:29:56] they would lift the gate up on all those pigeons

[00:30:00] and they would fly down Main Street.

[00:30:02] But one day it was wet and it was raining.

[00:30:06] So they opened it up and naturally the birds were wet

[00:30:10] and so they flew right into the band,

[00:30:15] right into the cymbal thing.

[00:30:16] And the funny thing was that he,

[00:30:19] ba-ba-da, ba-ba-ba, crash, bang

[00:30:22] and he held the cymbal up and a pigeon hit it,

[00:30:26] broke its neck and it's flopping around.

[00:30:29] And the kid's screaming.

[00:30:31] People are screaming, you know?

[00:30:34] They think that I'm like, you know, the worst

[00:30:36] and yeah, so that was horrible, just horrible.

[00:30:40] It was a good idea.

[00:30:41] Yeah, right, yeah, seemed like a good idea.

[00:30:44] Yeah, that's like something at Universal,

[00:30:47] like Horror Nights or whatever, you know?

[00:30:49] The mutilating band leader.

[00:30:51] That is so funny though.

[00:30:52] Right.

[00:30:54] Also that poor cymbalist, you know?

[00:30:56] Like what a traumatizing, I don't know if I could pick up

[00:30:59] a cymbal at that point after that.

[00:31:00] I'm like, no, I can't.

[00:31:02] Or indoors only.

[00:31:03] Well and everybody's screams are directed toward that guy.

[00:31:06] Oh, it's just.

[00:31:07] Yeah, it was wild.

[00:31:10] Yeah, but that pigeon, those pigeons broke their neck

[00:31:12] and they're flopping around my feet.

[00:31:16] Horrible, kids were screaming

[00:31:18] and I didn't know what the hell to do, you know?

[00:31:20] So I just kept conducting.

[00:31:23] Show must go on, brother.

[00:31:26] The show must go on.

[00:31:28] Yeah.

[00:31:28] In your book, you talk a lot about pranks

[00:31:32] and being funny, being a funny guy.

[00:31:35] What got me was the,

[00:31:38] you played down Main Street in Disney World.

[00:31:42] You played the theme to Deep Throat.

[00:31:45] Yes.

[00:31:46] The infamous porn movie.

[00:31:48] And I have some, I don't obviously have your version,

[00:31:51] but I've never seen Deep Throat, Taryn.

[00:31:53] I want you to know that.

[00:31:54] My lovely wife here, Taryn, I've never.

[00:31:57] But.

[00:31:58] I've only seen it three times, so.

[00:32:01] Well, you had to for research purposes and that's okay.

[00:32:05] It's not perverted if it's for music.

[00:32:07] Yeah, right.

[00:32:07] Well, here it is.

[00:32:08] Here's the theme.

[00:32:11] Oh.

[00:32:13] I mean, classic porn music.

[00:32:16] It's kind of good, honestly.

[00:32:17] It's not played well, but it's kind of good.

[00:32:22] Well, I was proud of the fact

[00:32:24] that I could march the Disney World band down Main Street

[00:32:29] playing the theme songs from Deep Throat.

[00:32:31] And the band was the only ones that knew

[00:32:35] that really that was it.

[00:32:35] So I'm laughing my ass off all the way down Main Street

[00:32:38] because we're playing Deep Throat

[00:32:40] and the people are clapping, you know?

[00:32:42] Oh goodness, your boss is being mean.

[00:32:45] Yeah, right.

[00:32:46] So anyhow, that was kind of a fun thing to do.

[00:32:48] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:32:49] And you only did it that one time, huh?

[00:32:52] Yes.

[00:32:53] Yeah.

[00:32:53] I feel like that's the,

[00:32:54] and you talk about the luck of the freeze in the book.

[00:32:55] I feel like that's pushing the luck of the freeze a lot

[00:32:57] because, and you know, you say,

[00:32:59] you sort of had one up on people

[00:33:01] because if they came to you and said,

[00:33:02] dude, what are you doing?

[00:33:04] That means they've seen the movie more than once

[00:33:06] to pick the song out.

[00:33:07] That's true.

[00:33:08] That's true.

[00:33:08] Good point.

[00:33:10] So then they're exposed as a pervert.

[00:33:12] Nobody can say anything.

[00:33:14] Yeah, but you can't push that too many times.

[00:33:16] No.

[00:33:17] So you saw it a couple of times,

[00:33:18] you arranged the music.

[00:33:21] Right.

[00:33:21] To play as like a marching band, Gary, or whatever.

[00:33:24] As yeah, we arranged the theme songs from Deep Throat

[00:33:28] into a marching band too.

[00:33:31] And which is fairly easy to do, you know?

[00:33:34] Oh sure.

[00:33:34] And then that would put us marching down Main Street

[00:33:37] playing Deep Throat and I was loving it.

[00:33:40] I never got caught but.

[00:33:43] I wonder how many dads are standing by

[00:33:47] and just like when you see like an ex

[00:33:50] and you're like, oh, you freeze, no pun intended.

[00:33:53] You're like, oh my God, what is, you know,

[00:33:54] am I being called out?

[00:33:56] Am I singled out as being, you know, an unholy pervert?

[00:34:01] Yeah.

[00:34:02] Kind of, kind of.

[00:34:04] Yeah, man, that'd be, that's amazing.

[00:34:06] That's amazing.

[00:34:08] Another prank that I wanted to cover

[00:34:09] because it was great.

[00:34:12] You had your birthday in Disney World

[00:34:14] and the musicians thought it was good to bake you a cake

[00:34:17] but the cake wasn't a normal cake.

[00:34:20] Right here.

[00:34:20] No, that was world and here.

[00:34:23] Oh both of them.

[00:34:24] And they loaded it up with marijuana.

[00:34:27] Yeah.

[00:34:28] Oh no.

[00:34:29] Yeah, so they made a big deal

[00:34:32] out of giving me this birthday cake down in the band room

[00:34:36] and the other guys knew what part of the cake to eat

[00:34:40] so they wouldn't get stoned.

[00:34:41] I didn't.

[00:34:44] So I'm eating all this cake and then I'm stoned, man.

[00:34:48] I can't figure out what the hell's going on.

[00:34:50] So yeah, that was kind of a fun deal.

[00:34:52] Yeah.

[00:34:54] You go, the band began walking out of the band room

[00:34:57] when I suddenly got a case of the giggles.

[00:35:00] Oh yeah, from pot.

[00:35:02] Yeah.

[00:35:03] From an adult.

[00:35:04] Then the giggles turned into uncontrollable laughter.

[00:35:07] Right, I didn't even know

[00:35:09] that marijuana could do that to you.

[00:35:13] Was that your first time with eating pot?

[00:35:16] Pretty much, you know, I grew up in Minnesota.

[00:35:19] So, yeah, it was,

[00:35:23] it was fun.

[00:35:24] It all worked and I didn't get caught.

[00:35:27] Yeah, neither did your-

[00:35:28] Yeah, neither did the band.

[00:35:29] But you had to go lead them over at the,

[00:35:31] at one of the like Carnation place

[00:35:35] or something like that, right?

[00:35:36] Oh yeah, then I had a concert at Carnation Gardens

[00:35:41] which is up the end of Main Street in front of the castle.

[00:35:44] And so they announced, the band got on stage

[00:35:49] and then they announced me and I come on.

[00:35:52] But the problem is I can't stop laughing.

[00:35:56] Then it is fan freeze, the Disneyland band

[00:35:58] and I'm just, I can't stop laughing

[00:36:01] because I'm so stoned.

[00:36:02] Yeah.

[00:36:03] Yeah, it was interesting.

[00:36:05] Didn't everybody come over

[00:36:07] because everybody else knew that-

[00:36:08] Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's right.

[00:36:09] The other bands had heard that I had done this

[00:36:14] and I was stoned.

[00:36:15] So they all took breaks at the same time,

[00:36:18] came over to Carnation Gardens to watch me.

[00:36:22] So I came on stage,

[00:36:24] ladies and gentlemen, stand free.

[00:36:26] I came on stage and I saw everybody out there

[00:36:29] and I just started to laugh uncontrollably.

[00:36:31] And I wanted to stop.

[00:36:33] Who took over?

[00:36:36] They played by themselves.

[00:36:38] Oh, they were like, oh, we better kick this off.

[00:36:40] Yeah, yeah, it's true.

[00:36:42] Yeah.

[00:36:45] That really was the case in another concert

[00:36:47] that I got up there and was stoned.

[00:36:50] And started the thing.

[00:36:53] I think that, you mean the one here in California?

[00:36:56] That was back here.

[00:36:57] That was another birthday thing they did to you.

[00:36:59] Yeah, the birthday cake.

[00:37:01] Yeah, they love feeding you drugs.

[00:37:03] Yeah, it was great.

[00:37:04] Yeah, well, it sounds like

[00:37:06] you were a miserable person to work with anyway.

[00:37:07] So they had to make you laugh.

[00:37:10] That's right.

[00:37:11] Yeah, no, you know, in your book,

[00:37:13] it sounds very much like you were universally loved

[00:37:18] but also strict because you had a standard

[00:37:21] that you wanted everybody to live up to.

[00:37:23] And how was that with musicians?

[00:37:26] I know they can have a reputation of sort of,

[00:37:28] you know, like herding cats.

[00:37:30] Maybe that's just drummers.

[00:37:31] I don't know the thing, but it's like,

[00:37:33] there's a lot of that, but how do you keep them solid

[00:37:36] and still gain their respect, you know?

[00:37:40] I hired them that way.

[00:37:42] Okay.

[00:37:43] Smart.

[00:37:44] So I auditioned people and then I got people's reputation

[00:37:49] and rumors and everything.

[00:37:51] And so I would then have the advantage

[00:37:54] of hiring musicians that weren't gonna get loaded every day.

[00:38:00] And so we did.

[00:38:02] I was lucky, I was really lucky.

[00:38:05] Yeah, it sounds like it.

[00:38:06] But you were able to craft that and put that together.

[00:38:08] I mean, it's almost like you could write another book

[00:38:10] just on management.

[00:38:11] Yeah.

[00:38:12] The way that you talk about going to bat for your musicians,

[00:38:16] even sometimes against corporate.

[00:38:18] Always.

[00:38:19] Oh yeah, always.

[00:38:20] Yeah.

[00:38:21] I always had it Disney because, you know,

[00:38:23] because I respected the corporate thing

[00:38:27] and the fact that is we worked that,

[00:38:30] I had to kind of figure out how to impress

[00:38:32] the corporate deal and still keep these crazy musicians happy

[00:38:37] but I kinda knew how to do it.

[00:38:39] And I think part of that's being from a small town

[00:38:41] in Minnesota, you know, and I just kind of learned

[00:38:45] and it was easy.

[00:38:47] The musicians, professional musicians usually are pretty cool

[00:38:51] because they've gone through, you know, years of practice

[00:38:55] and being laughed at and can't get a job.

[00:38:59] And so I kinda knew all those things

[00:39:04] and I played up to them and they were impressed.

[00:39:09] Okay, that makes sense.

[00:39:10] You know, there's a lot of respect, you know,

[00:39:13] going both ways and I suppose that's the key.

[00:39:15] And it's also Minnesota nice.

[00:39:16] It apparently is a real thing.

[00:39:18] Yeah.

[00:39:18] Yeah.

[00:39:19] Yeah.

[00:39:20] It really is.

[00:39:22] Yeah.

[00:39:23] You talk a lot about, you know, so when you're in the band

[00:39:26] you start transitioning into booking acts for Disneyland.

[00:39:33] Like you booked Tinkerbell.

[00:39:35] You booked the lady who eventually went on to be Tinkerbell

[00:39:38] for like 20 years or something like that.

[00:39:39] It was like the one that flew across from the Matterhorn.

[00:39:42] Right, exactly.

[00:39:43] I think it's amazing.

[00:39:44] That's awesome.

[00:39:46] What I did is I went to the circus

[00:39:48] and I talked to the Barnum and Bailey people

[00:39:53] and I said, here's what I need.

[00:39:54] I need a small female that has a lot of guts

[00:40:00] and will go up on the top of the Matterhorn

[00:40:03] and jump off and go down that big wire

[00:40:07] all the way down to our city of Main Street.

[00:40:10] Yeah.

[00:40:11] And so by getting a circus woman,

[00:40:15] that was the thing to do.

[00:40:16] I mean, they were used to that stuff.

[00:40:18] And so I had made a correct decision there.

[00:40:22] Sounds like it.

[00:40:23] I mean, she lasted 20 years or whatever.

[00:40:24] And you know, that's a long time

[00:40:26] to be strung up on a wire, man.

[00:40:29] You're exactly right.

[00:40:30] Oh yeah, okay.

[00:40:34] So we're gonna have, it was 4th of July or something.

[00:40:38] Oh, New Year's Eve, that was it.

[00:40:40] And the Mickey Mouse was a guy by the name of Paul Tassel

[00:40:46] and he had been with the circus

[00:40:47] and he was kind of an older guy,

[00:40:50] but I needed a baby New Year.

[00:40:55] So I dressed him up in diapers

[00:40:59] and told him not to wear a shirt.

[00:41:03] And then I got him up on the top of the Matterhorn

[00:41:06] and was ready to push him off.

[00:41:08] But he got up there and he looked down

[00:41:10] and he went, no fricking way, I'm not gonna do this.

[00:41:16] And so I said, come on, man, you gotta do this.

[00:41:18] There's all these people.

[00:41:19] Yeah, watching us.

[00:41:21] So he's yapping and he's going, I'm not gonna do it.

[00:41:23] And I just went and pushed him.

[00:41:27] He was already wired up.

[00:41:30] Sure.

[00:41:31] I just kind of picked him up and tossed him.

[00:41:33] And he's screaming all the way down

[00:41:38] and flaming his arms and legs

[00:41:41] were just flying uncontrollably

[00:41:44] because he was petrified that he's gonna die.

[00:41:48] He went all the way down, it worked,

[00:41:50] but he never spoke to me again.

[00:41:55] Was it worth it?

[00:41:57] Yes, oh yeah.

[00:41:59] Because it sort of works.

[00:42:01] A baby would be crying and flailing its arms.

[00:42:03] You might as well, you know, it all worked out.

[00:42:07] Tell them the other Paul Castle story about over at Carnation.

[00:42:10] Oh, get this.

[00:42:11] So we would do, the Disneyland band

[00:42:14] would do a sit down concert every day

[00:42:16] over at Carnation Plaza.

[00:42:17] It had a real nice stage.

[00:42:19] And so-

[00:42:21] Was it for a group of second graders?

[00:42:23] Yeah, a bunch of second graders.

[00:42:26] And part of what I would do is bring Mickey Mouse out

[00:42:30] for the Mickey Mouse March.

[00:42:32] And all the kids loved it and blah, blah, blah.

[00:42:35] And he would prance around the stage.

[00:42:37] Well, I introduced him, he came out and he tripped

[00:42:41] and his head fell off.

[00:42:42] No!

[00:42:43] Oh no!

[00:42:44] Yes, the mouse's head flew off

[00:42:48] and here's all of these kids screaming.

[00:42:51] They're going nuts, you know?

[00:42:53] Yeah, he's going-

[00:42:54] Oh yeah, he's going, God damn it, God damn it.

[00:42:58] And that got picked up on the microphones.

[00:43:02] Oh, it was wild.

[00:43:03] It was crazy, man.

[00:43:06] I'd forgotten about that.

[00:43:08] What happened to him?

[00:43:09] Did he get in trouble for that or?

[00:43:11] Oh, uh-uh, nope.

[00:43:13] Yeah.

[00:43:13] Nope.

[00:43:14] Everybody, yeah, we were lucky.

[00:43:17] Yeah, I feel like it was a different time back then.

[00:43:19] It was, for sure.

[00:43:21] You couldn't do that now, man, they'd fire you.

[00:43:23] Oh yeah, absolutely.

[00:43:24] Yeah, I feel like you should have been fired

[00:43:26] at least five times in your book.

[00:43:27] Oh no, 15 or 20.

[00:43:31] I mean, there's, one of my favorite parts is for Halloween

[00:43:35] when you were leading the Disneyland band,

[00:43:37] you came out in masks.

[00:43:40] Yes, well what I did is I went to the magic shop

[00:43:44] on Main Street that also sold Halloween masks,

[00:43:48] really nice ones, I mean, the kind you put over your head.

[00:43:52] So I thought, you know what, it'll be fun.

[00:43:55] So I told the guys in the band, before we stepped off,

[00:43:58] we were behind the gate and I said, now look,

[00:44:01] when they opened that gate, first of all,

[00:44:03] I said keep your masks under your band coat

[00:44:08] that had a zipper.

[00:44:10] And so everybody had their masks under their coats

[00:44:16] and they opened the gate, the Disneyland band,

[00:44:18] and then all of a sudden everybody put their masks on

[00:44:23] and the company went nuts.

[00:44:26] They hate, you know, they were after me forever.

[00:44:30] That was sacrilegious.

[00:44:32] Yeah, I can imagine, but everything was fine.

[00:44:35] But also you were just showing off the merchandise.

[00:44:38] That's right.

[00:44:41] Yeah, totally.

[00:44:43] Yeah, at the end you should have been,

[00:44:44] and you can buy these masks over at the magic shop.

[00:44:49] Yeah, should have done that.

[00:44:51] You sound like the best boss ever, honestly.

[00:44:54] Well, you know what?

[00:44:56] Being a musician, I had real empathy for the musicians

[00:45:00] and my parents were both musicians.

[00:45:03] So I kind of knew where they were coming from

[00:45:06] and I respected their talent and what they do.

[00:45:09] And so they knew that and I treated them

[00:45:12] with a lot of respect just because I did.

[00:45:15] And the word got around and the guys loved it

[00:45:19] and became, to be a band member at Disneyland

[00:45:22] became kind of a big deal because people loved doing it.

[00:45:26] Yeah, the band has always been very special

[00:45:27] to a lot of people.

[00:45:29] And you were obviously, you know, instrumental,

[00:45:31] no pun intended, you know, in forming the look of that

[00:45:35] and the feel of that.

[00:45:36] And you talk about coming from Disney World

[00:45:38] into Disneyland, you wanted to expand the band a little bit

[00:45:40] and make it a fuller sound,

[00:45:43] but management sort of pushed back on that,

[00:45:45] if I remember correctly.

[00:45:46] And you're like, no, this is, you want it to sound good

[00:45:49] or, you know, this is how it has to be.

[00:45:52] And you knew what you wanted.

[00:45:54] I had other bands there playing and so professional bands,

[00:46:00] Dixie bands and a Cajun band and whatever.

[00:46:03] So they were, you know, it was expected

[00:46:07] that they were gonna be good and they were.

[00:46:10] Yeah, they were.

[00:46:12] You know, I have very few memories of going to Disneyland

[00:46:15] in those times.

[00:46:16] And the band was one of the things that always struck me

[00:46:19] and stuck with me is the,

[00:46:22] and I guess it's music in general,

[00:46:23] which is why I'm so drawn to music.

[00:46:24] It's like the fact that people can play this kind of music

[00:46:28] and make it sound so effortless and look so effortless

[00:46:32] is appalling to me because I'm looking at myself

[00:46:37] playing the bass and I'm going like, I can't,

[00:46:39] I'm so, I'm all thumbs.

[00:46:41] We have a friend called Sam and Sam is a genius.

[00:46:46] He's one of those dudes,

[00:46:48] I'm sure you've encountered hundreds of them.

[00:46:50] They can play by ear.

[00:46:51] They'll hear one thing,

[00:46:52] they'll hear a music the first time and like, oh,

[00:46:54] and he'll just like pick it out on the piano.

[00:46:56] And to me it sounds perfect,

[00:46:59] but he plays the guitar really, really well.

[00:47:00] But he's one of those dudes that sits there

[00:47:03] and he looks bored out of his mind

[00:47:06] while he's just shredding.

[00:47:07] And he's like, but he's so in the zone, I guess,

[00:47:09] or whatever, like it comes too naturally to him.

[00:47:12] It's disgusting.

[00:47:13] I don't like him.

[00:47:16] But it's stuff like that where I go like, this is amazing.

[00:47:19] I don't know how people can do this.

[00:47:20] Music is fascinating to me, you know,

[00:47:22] in that regard and listen to the sounds

[00:47:25] that you make on the tuba.

[00:47:27] It's the same thing.

[00:47:28] Yeah.

[00:47:29] It sounds incredible that the human mouth

[00:47:33] can make these sounds and it sounds easy.

[00:47:37] Yeah.

[00:47:39] That's the trick, make it sound easy.

[00:47:41] Yeah.

[00:47:42] And it worked, you know?

[00:47:44] And it worked, man.

[00:47:45] My dad was really, like I say,

[00:47:47] he'd been a musician growing up

[00:47:50] and then he taught band when I was doing this.

[00:47:53] He was the band director at Edina.

[00:47:56] And so there is always mutual respect

[00:48:00] and he kind of knew what we were capable of

[00:48:04] as human beings and what we weren't

[00:48:06] because a corporate guy

[00:48:07] that doesn't know anything about music

[00:48:09] will have one of those small bands, you know,

[00:48:12] standing on their head or wanting to doing stupid stuff.

[00:48:16] Oh, I see.

[00:48:17] But if the management respects musicians,

[00:48:20] then it's perfect, you know?

[00:48:23] And they did.

[00:48:23] Disney was really good at that, I have to say.

[00:48:26] You know, I was lucky.

[00:48:29] Yeah, the show has to mean something, I think.

[00:48:33] Yeah.

[00:48:33] Yeah, that's great.

[00:48:35] You talked about, you know,

[00:48:36] different acts that you're hiring.

[00:48:38] I didn't know this, of course, why would I?

[00:48:40] But you basically started Billy Hill and the Hillbillies,

[00:48:44] the famous, the most loved, you know,

[00:48:47] act probably in Disneyland in the last 25 years.

[00:48:51] Yeah, that's Disneyland.

[00:48:54] Yeah, and I hired a guy by the name of Kirk Wall

[00:48:58] that was kind of an average guitar player

[00:49:03] and average singer, but he was funny as hell.

[00:49:06] And he was animated.

[00:49:09] So, you know, I used him and he was, it was great.

[00:49:12] Everybody loved, they'd come over

[00:49:14] and then the other musicians kind of went along with that

[00:49:18] and they started doing crazy stuff.

[00:49:19] So, you know, without trying,

[00:49:23] I really had a real fun group of guys, you know?

[00:49:27] So when Disney decided to let them go,

[00:49:30] they didn't even tell you, did they?

[00:49:31] No.

[00:49:33] Oh.

[00:49:34] Yeah.

[00:49:35] Yeah.

[00:49:35] They were going to get rid of the band,

[00:49:37] but they didn't tell me, the company.

[00:49:39] As they knew you were-

[00:49:40] They knew that I, yeah,

[00:49:42] get support from all of the people in Los Angeles.

[00:49:48] So when you finally did learn about it,

[00:49:50] you got them a job like the same day they were let go.

[00:49:53] Yeah, yeah, I was lucky.

[00:49:54] You brought them to knots.

[00:49:57] Yeah.

[00:49:57] Wow.

[00:49:58] That was you, oh wow.

[00:49:59] Dude, because I remember reporting on this, you know,

[00:50:01] because we're also a highly respected journalist outfit.

[00:50:05] And I remember doing the news story on that

[00:50:07] and it's like, whoa, those guys just went to knots, dude.

[00:50:11] How crazy is that?

[00:50:12] It's almost like a, I don't say a middle finger,

[00:50:14] but it's almost like a thumbing of the nose for sure.

[00:50:17] Yeah.

[00:50:18] I mean, you did that, that's awesome.

[00:50:20] The interesting thing is now Tara and I

[00:50:24] book all the acts into knots.

[00:50:26] Yeah.

[00:50:27] And we have for a few years.

[00:50:28] That's so cool.

[00:50:29] So we're out there all the time.

[00:50:31] Oh, cool.

[00:50:32] Yeah, it was lucky.

[00:50:34] They hadn't had anybody that really had expertise

[00:50:37] at putting groups together and so it worked.

[00:50:41] I had fun, they had fun and we're still out there.

[00:50:44] Tara and I still go out there three times a week.

[00:50:47] Really?

[00:50:47] So we're still getting paid and we're out there.

[00:50:51] Giving a lot of bands good work.

[00:50:52] Oh yeah, the deal that I always liked about my job

[00:50:57] was that I was able to give great employment

[00:51:02] to wonderful musicians.

[00:51:04] And I always, that was something that I was so proud of

[00:51:08] and rightfully so.

[00:51:10] You know, there's all these great players

[00:51:11] and there's no place to play.

[00:51:14] And so I was able to give them great job.

[00:51:17] So that was nice.

[00:51:20] Yeah, it's like you're giving back to the community.

[00:51:22] Exactly.

[00:51:23] I love that, man.

[00:51:24] I think that's really sweet.

[00:51:25] Thanks.

[00:51:27] I have a question.

[00:51:27] Since we're kind of on this topic a little bit,

[00:51:30] I remember a couple of years ago,

[00:51:33] maybe two or three years ago, I think,

[00:51:35] that they kind of did a,

[00:51:37] Disneyland did a whole overhaul

[00:51:39] sort of their marching band, didn't they?

[00:51:42] They kind of changed a lot of things,

[00:51:44] kind of brought in a lot of younger people.

[00:51:46] I'm curious how you felt about that whole situation.

[00:51:49] Well, I just made sure

[00:51:54] that they all had good employment.

[00:51:56] And I was lucky because I was able

[00:52:00] to communicate with management.

[00:52:02] And I don't know why, I guess,

[00:52:04] cause I'm from Minnesota, but anyhow.

[00:52:08] How'd you feel about the overhaul of the band though?

[00:52:10] Where they make them dance now.

[00:52:12] Oh yeah.

[00:52:12] I mean, now it's a whole different story.

[00:52:14] If I was there now, we'd all be fired in 20 minutes.

[00:52:17] You know, they're doing all these choreographed things,

[00:52:22] which is fine.

[00:52:24] It's really fine and the guests love it,

[00:52:27] but it just wasn't part of what I wanted to be a part of.

[00:52:30] Yeah, I understand that.

[00:52:33] I wanted to chat a little bit

[00:52:35] cause you're very open about it

[00:52:36] and about your alcoholism, your struggle with that

[00:52:39] and how that affected your work at Disneyland.

[00:52:42] Because I was very affected with that

[00:52:45] by your story as well, if that's okay to bring up real fast.

[00:52:48] Yeah, I'll drink to that.

[00:52:50] Jeez, man.

[00:52:52] One thing that got me is sort of,

[00:52:57] cause I have a friend who seemed the very same way

[00:53:00] that you were when you were drinking.

[00:53:03] Where it felt like, at least in your book,

[00:53:05] that nobody really knew what was going on

[00:53:07] and you hid it really well, that you were just a fun guy.

[00:53:11] But inside you were hurting

[00:53:12] until it eventually blew up your life

[00:53:14] and you had to get help and thankfully you did

[00:53:18] and you talk about that redemption story

[00:53:20] and it's very beautiful in the book.

[00:53:21] But it sort of made me realize

[00:53:23] how much people who struggle with alcoholism,

[00:53:26] especially my friend, like I said,

[00:53:27] who's very, very similar in these regards,

[00:53:29] how much effort it takes to really change

[00:53:32] and your struggle with that stigma

[00:53:36] or that self-perceived stigma

[00:53:37] of what an alcoholic was at that time

[00:53:41] and maybe how that prevented you from getting help earlier.

[00:53:44] How was that revelation to you, I suppose,

[00:53:47] is what I'm asking.

[00:53:48] Well, I checked myself in.

[00:53:50] At the trishul.

[00:53:51] Yeah, my wife left and so I had a lot of time to recoup.

[00:53:57] No.

[00:53:57] I, yeah, it was great.

[00:54:02] I mean, I really took that seriously, AA meetings.

[00:54:07] You said like three times a day.

[00:54:08] Yeah, three times a day.

[00:54:11] Because I've-

[00:54:11] You did that for several years.

[00:54:12] Yeah, for a few years I did that

[00:54:15] and I still go to an AA meeting every so often

[00:54:19] and just to remember what I am.

[00:54:23] So I can't say enough about Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:54:28] If you get a good group of people, man,

[00:54:31] you have that support

[00:54:32] and, you know, because it's tough to quit drinking

[00:54:36] if you're an alcoholic.

[00:54:38] It's really tough.

[00:54:39] So-

[00:54:40] This Saturday's your 37th anniversary.

[00:54:42] Oh yeah.

[00:54:43] Wow.

[00:54:44] This Saturday, I've been sober 37 years.

[00:54:46] Brother, congratulations, man.

[00:54:48] That is no small feat, man.

[00:54:50] Yeah, there were times when I was wondering.

[00:54:54] Yeah, I bet.

[00:54:55] I can imagine, man.

[00:54:56] That's all part of it.

[00:54:57] Well, you know, in the book you tell this little blurb

[00:55:01] about being, a lot of your drinking,

[00:55:04] it seemed to happen off hours, of course,

[00:55:07] but you were so hungover at work

[00:55:10] that you had to, for instance, marching down Main Street,

[00:55:14] you had to keep in the middle of the trolley tracks

[00:55:18] because you couldn't see straight.

[00:55:18] Yeah, I would've,

[00:55:20] yeah, I forgot about that.

[00:55:22] Yeah.

[00:55:23] That's wild, man.

[00:55:25] Well, and so I guess when you go back to the parks,

[00:55:28] first of all, do you go back to the parks?

[00:55:30] Yes.

[00:55:31] Do all these memories kind of come back to you

[00:55:33] about times that you did this

[00:55:34] or maybe they're not so happy now or, you know?

[00:55:38] Yeah.

[00:55:39] What's your mind frame when you go back to the parks?

[00:55:41] Well, the thing is that my whole being

[00:55:45] is the Disney theme parks, so I don't know anything else.

[00:55:49] And so I loved every minute of being sober and being there.

[00:55:56] When you go back now, how do you feel?

[00:55:59] A lot of times you talk about how

[00:56:01] they've made so many changes since you were there.

[00:56:05] Sometimes you'll say, oh, I think I quit at a good time

[00:56:09] because since you quit,

[00:56:12] they've done so many different things

[00:56:14] to the music and stuff.

[00:56:16] Yeah, when I was there,

[00:56:18] I wouldn't let them get away with any of that stuff.

[00:56:21] So I was kind of a strong voice

[00:56:26] for the musicians and what they were doing.

[00:56:29] So it was fun for me,

[00:56:31] and I guess it was fun for all the guys.

[00:56:34] Yeah, and now a lot of the bands will say,

[00:56:39] nobody's giving us work, we don't have anything,

[00:56:42] there's nothing.

[00:56:43] And so Stan will say, well, sorry, that's because I'm gone.

[00:56:49] Yeah, I was a pain in the butt for administration

[00:56:54] because I wanted to showcase all these musicians

[00:56:57] and I want them to pay a decent salary to these guys.

[00:57:04] Yeah, you have to have a living wage.

[00:57:05] Yeah, so it was tough, man.

[00:57:09] You are big on institutional memory.

[00:57:15] So you would always say,

[00:57:19] Disney needs to remember what Walt wanted.

[00:57:22] Yeah, and I call that institutional memory.

[00:57:27] You know what that is.

[00:57:29] So I always respect the band and what it's doing

[00:57:35] and the people that put it together.

[00:57:37] And it all works and it's still working.

[00:57:40] Yeah, it's just different.

[00:57:42] And I give you a lot of props for that.

[00:57:44] I mean, in your book, you came in 1983

[00:57:48] and literally saved the Disneyland band.

[00:57:51] It sounds like it was on the chopping block for a while.

[00:57:53] The heads were at it, they were after it.

[00:57:56] I can't believe that.

[00:57:57] I couldn't imagine Disneyland without live music.

[00:57:59] Corporate was not, they weren't into that.

[00:58:03] And so a lot of bands

[00:58:05] that would have normally been there weren't.

[00:58:08] So the thing that I was proud of

[00:58:10] was bringing live bands back into the park,

[00:58:14] giving these musicians good employment and it worked.

[00:58:18] Yeah, and not just the employment,

[00:58:21] you also brought in contractor bands too,

[00:58:24] like After Dark.

[00:58:26] Oh yeah, I had big bands,

[00:58:29] a bunch of big bands from the LA area

[00:58:32] that would come and work Saturday nights

[00:58:35] at Carnation Gardens.

[00:58:37] And so it got to be kind of a thing

[00:58:40] where a lot of people wanted to come out

[00:58:41] and see what I was doing with the band.

[00:58:44] Yeah, it's a hotspot.

[00:58:46] Yeah, it was fun.

[00:58:48] And the community was real good to me.

[00:58:53] I mean, they wrote the company.

[00:58:55] If there was something that was bugging me,

[00:58:58] some of those guys would write the company

[00:59:01] and stick up for me and what have you.

[00:59:04] So it all worked, that's the amazing thing.

[00:59:08] It all worked.

[00:59:10] Yeah, it did.

[00:59:10] Well, and I think it's missed

[00:59:12] and that's how you know it worked even more.

[00:59:14] You know what I mean?

[00:59:15] It's more of a fine point on it.

[00:59:16] Yeah.

[00:59:17] And stuff like that is missed.

[00:59:18] Like when Taron was saying,

[00:59:20] like when they sort of blew up the band,

[00:59:22] the marching band,

[00:59:23] and now it's almost like a drum line kind of thing.

[00:59:25] It's different and there's still music,

[00:59:27] but it's not the same.

[00:59:29] Yeah, no, you're right.

[00:59:30] You're exactly right.

[00:59:32] But I always made sure that the stuff

[00:59:35] that we were playing was exciting,

[00:59:38] even though there were marches.

[00:59:40] You know, we'd march down Main Street.

[00:59:41] I'd take them a little faster than what they should be.

[00:59:44] And that kind of added a little excitement

[00:59:48] to the band going down the street,

[00:59:50] playing kind of an exciting version of Semper Fidelis.

[00:59:55] Yeah.

[00:59:56] Well, we were talking about the Carnation Plaza

[00:59:59] for just a little bit there.

[01:00:00] And it reminded me of a point in your book

[01:00:02] I wanted to bring up about the closing.

[01:00:05] And I'm a big softie, you know,

[01:00:07] I'm kind of a jerk,

[01:00:08] but I also, you know, I tear up every now and then.

[01:00:12] And the only point in your book,

[01:00:14] which I thank you for,

[01:00:15] I was tearing up at,

[01:00:16] you're talking about the closing,

[01:00:17] the last day of the Plaza Garden,

[01:00:19] the Carnation Plaza Garden,

[01:00:21] where you and Jason, your son, took the stage.

[01:00:25] You say, once the guest band had gone

[01:00:27] and the day guests had cleared out,

[01:00:29] Jason and I took to the stage for a short daylight concert.

[01:00:32] It literally lasted maybe four minutes.

[01:00:35] Jason played his sax,

[01:00:36] I played one of my tubas,

[01:00:37] and Jason's three-year-old son, Tennessee,

[01:00:39] danced on stage next to us.

[01:00:42] Three generations of Fries men

[01:00:44] were on that stage at the same time.

[01:00:46] Yep, nobody in the audience.

[01:00:49] We were just doing it for us.

[01:00:50] Aw.

[01:00:51] Yeah.

[01:00:52] And then, you know, later on it says,

[01:00:54] this may not be in the Disney trivia books,

[01:00:56] but I can say without a doubt

[01:00:57] that Stan and Jason Fries were the last musicians

[01:01:00] to perform at the historic Carnation Plaza Gardens.

[01:01:03] And, you know, and then you talk about

[01:01:05] who you're playing for,

[01:01:05] you're playing in memory of all the big band leaders

[01:01:07] and all the big band people

[01:01:08] that you were lucky enough to play with.

[01:01:11] And it was just a very touching moment, man.

[01:01:12] It was very sweet.

[01:01:13] And I don't know, it stood out a lot to me.

[01:01:16] And I teared up not only reading it, Stanford,

[01:01:20] but I teared up writing out my note

[01:01:22] to talk to you about it.

[01:01:24] That means a lot to me.

[01:01:26] Yeah, well, that's good, man.

[01:01:27] I'm better than I thought I was.

[01:01:29] Well, you know, that's, hey,

[01:01:32] I'm glad I could finally tell you.

[01:01:35] But yeah, when Carnation Plaza kind of went away,

[01:01:37] that was a big stink.

[01:01:38] We talked about that as too.

[01:01:39] And what I wanted to get your take on,

[01:01:41] and we're wind up here, I'll let you go.

[01:01:43] I've kept you a long time, I apologize.

[01:01:45] But there was a big stink about that stage

[01:01:46] being taken away.

[01:01:47] And I wanted to ask you as a man

[01:01:49] who's seen a lot of changes in the parks,

[01:01:50] why do you think Disney fans kind of hold on to the past,

[01:01:54] specifically in that park?

[01:01:56] I don't really think a lot of people,

[01:01:57] like if a town changes something or whatever,

[01:01:59] no one really cares.

[01:02:00] But when Disneyland changes anything,

[01:02:03] people get riled up and even maybe now more so

[01:02:05] than it used to be because of social media.

[01:02:07] But what do you think that is,

[01:02:10] that desire to sort of hold on to the past,

[01:02:12] but also get excited about what's new?

[01:02:14] What's going on there?

[01:02:15] Because of all the things that go along with Disney

[01:02:19] and Walt, like the movies and the TV shows

[01:02:25] and what have you, that it was all the way

[01:02:28] it was supposed to be.

[01:02:29] And it was fun for me to do that.

[01:02:31] And they probably, people have these memories

[01:02:38] from when they were children and being there.

[01:02:40] That's why when things change, you go,

[01:02:41] oh, that's one way?

[01:02:43] Right.

[01:02:44] Yeah.

[01:02:45] And the audience, our standard audience

[01:02:47] from Southern California, they felt cheated

[01:02:51] that the band was doing so little of what they used to do.

[01:02:56] But that was just life.

[01:02:58] And I would say that it's come up back a little bit.

[01:03:02] Maybe.

[01:03:04] But what about like with the new changes they're doing now?

[01:03:06] That's good and bad.

[01:03:08] Yeah.

[01:03:09] At one point, they were talking about changing Main Street

[01:03:12] to a 1950s or something, right?

[01:03:15] Right, yeah.

[01:03:16] Oh, forget about it.

[01:03:17] You kidding me?

[01:03:19] There's no way.

[01:03:20] The Disney fans would J6 the, you know,

[01:03:23] Disney, there's no way, man.

[01:03:25] The yippies would come back and take over.

[01:03:29] You know, you're exactly right.

[01:03:31] That would be insane.

[01:03:32] I wanted my sons to play on that stage just once

[01:03:37] to say that they were on there.

[01:03:39] Josh wasn't available, right?

[01:03:40] Yeah, Josh, well, I had Josh do it later.

[01:03:44] Our son Josh is in Green Day.

[01:03:47] No.

[01:03:48] No, I mean, Foo Fighters.

[01:03:49] Foo Fighters, yeah, yeah.

[01:03:51] And Jason was in Green Day.

[01:03:53] But you know, it's fun having those kinds

[01:03:56] of really good leaders and record companies.

[01:04:02] And you know, we always felt really lucky and gifted

[01:04:07] that we had that kind of cooperation

[01:04:09] from people that maybe the company wouldn't have done

[01:04:13] except they got bitched at a lot.

[01:04:15] Yeah.

[01:04:17] Yeah, I look, man.

[01:04:19] I, you know, what strikes me about your book mainly

[01:04:23] is a lot of threads.

[01:04:24] But the common one is if I saw this book

[01:04:26] like as a movie or a TV show,

[01:04:29] I would be like, this is never,

[01:04:31] there's no way this happened.

[01:04:34] There's so much, I think that you could,

[01:04:37] like even your stint as the band director

[01:04:39] at Edison High or whatever,

[01:04:41] you could probably, no joke,

[01:04:43] you could probably turn that into some kind of hallmark

[01:04:45] like Christmas movie, you know, where it's like,

[01:04:47] oh, I don't have time to find love

[01:04:49] because I need to pull the high school band together

[01:04:52] because it's the pride of the town.

[01:04:54] Something like that, like it would be so,

[01:04:57] well, too bizarre.

[01:04:59] It's so crazy.

[01:05:01] And you have all of these,

[01:05:02] like you tell your story about Josh

[01:05:05] when he was about to be born,

[01:05:07] where you flag a police officer down

[01:05:10] and get a, excuse me,

[01:05:12] get a police escort to the hospital

[01:05:16] just to wave him down.

[01:05:17] And it's like, what are you doing?

[01:05:19] And it gets better.

[01:05:21] It's like, you have so many stories like this.

[01:05:22] Like the other one that stuck out is going to Bulgaria.

[01:05:26] And I don't want to ruin the story for anybody

[01:05:28] in case you want to read it,

[01:05:29] but it's like, it involves art theft.

[01:05:31] I mean, maybe not really,

[01:05:33] but just stuff like this, Stan,

[01:05:35] you've had such a cool life

[01:05:37] and you've been able to really share that love of music

[01:05:41] with a lot of people,

[01:05:42] probably more than you ever thought possible.

[01:05:44] And it's amazing.

[01:05:46] It's just, you've had a good time

[01:05:47] and you're still doing it.

[01:05:49] You're still doing it.

[01:05:50] Really blessed, you know?

[01:05:53] It just worked for me in this incarnation.

[01:05:58] My next life, I'm not sure,

[01:06:00] but this life is good.

[01:06:04] I encourage everyone to get the book.

[01:06:07] It's Music Mayhem and the Mouse.

[01:06:09] It's very good.

[01:06:10] I have other audio clips,

[01:06:11] but we've been going so long.

[01:06:15] Just to name some stuff,

[01:06:17] you've been on Hee Haw several times.

[01:06:22] I was gonna ask you before I found some clips,

[01:06:25] I was like, you should really do a song with the Vandals

[01:06:28] or one of Josh and Jason's band.

[01:06:29] It turns out you did.

[01:06:30] Oh my gosh.

[01:06:31] You played the country tuba

[01:06:34] with the Vandals' country album.

[01:06:35] And it's like, dude, what?

[01:06:36] This is, I don't know.

[01:06:38] Again, things in your life you can't write

[01:06:41] because they've already been done.

[01:06:43] Yeah.

[01:06:44] Yeah, I mean, like I say,

[01:06:46] I know it sounds boring

[01:06:49] because I keep saying it,

[01:06:50] but I've really been blessed, man,

[01:06:53] to have these opportunities

[01:06:55] and people that believed in me.

[01:06:59] So it just worked really well for me.

[01:07:01] I don't know any other way to put it,

[01:07:05] but I'm so happy that my boys got a chance

[01:07:08] to experience some of that at Disneyland as entertainers.

[01:07:13] So it worked.

[01:07:14] Especially Josh.

[01:07:15] Yeah, especially Josh.

[01:07:17] You know, they did stories on him

[01:07:19] and now he's with the Foo Fighters and Sting.

[01:07:23] He was such a cool interview.

[01:07:26] I mean, you know, I went into that

[01:07:28] obviously not having a book to lean on,

[01:07:31] just my love for the bands that he's been in.

[01:07:33] And so I sort of fangirled over it a little bit.

[01:07:38] But he just, you know, he has so many stories

[01:07:40] he just talked.

[01:07:41] And I was okay with that.

[01:07:43] I was like, just, this is great.

[01:07:44] This is the greatest.

[01:07:45] It was a very fun interview.

[01:07:47] And you can definitely tell where the charm comes from.

[01:07:50] Well, yeah.

[01:07:53] At least the mouth.

[01:07:56] Okay, well, the mouth comes from you, I guess.

[01:07:59] Yeah, well, Josh, he's kind of naturally cool.

[01:08:02] Yes.

[01:08:03] He was born cool.

[01:08:04] And so I fangirled over him.

[01:08:06] Well, he had a police escort.

[01:08:08] Yeah.

[01:08:09] Yeah, right.

[01:08:10] He's always got a book that he's reading, you know.

[01:08:14] Journals.

[01:08:15] Journals, he journals a lot.

[01:08:17] And so it's fun for me to see their lives

[01:08:23] turn out as well as they're turning out.

[01:08:25] Yeah, it does.

[01:08:26] And are into drugs or booze, you know, which is really.

[01:08:30] And you didn't push either boy into music.

[01:08:32] No.

[01:08:33] I decided I wasn't, when they were young,

[01:08:36] I decided I was not going to push them

[01:08:39] into being a musician.

[01:08:41] And if they wanted to on their own, great.

[01:08:44] I would support it.

[01:08:45] But I certainly wouldn't over encourage it.

[01:08:49] And it just felt that they, you know,

[01:08:51] were musicians at heart and got what they wanted.

[01:08:55] They play a lot, you know.

[01:08:57] You keep saying that you're very blessed

[01:09:01] and you guys are very lucky.

[01:09:03] And I just want to say in this very short time

[01:09:05] we've talked to you

[01:09:07] and that I've gotten to know you a little bit,

[01:09:10] I think it's also,

[01:09:11] you seem to have this just great positivity about life.

[01:09:16] And I think that that takes,

[01:09:18] that sounds to me like that's taken you really far,

[01:09:20] like a positivity and a confidence.

[01:09:22] And I think that's really excellent to hear.

[01:09:24] Yeah, that's kind of always been my mantra,

[01:09:28] you know, is to be encouraging and up all the time.

[01:09:32] And it's worked, you know.

[01:09:35] I was able to give musicians

[01:09:37] a kind of a different view of themselves

[01:09:39] and what they're doing.

[01:09:41] And so I, you know, it's great.

[01:09:44] And like I say, my kids are really into it.

[01:09:47] I mean, Josh is what, 50?

[01:09:49] 51.

[01:09:50] 51, oh man.

[01:09:52] Anyhow, he's still doing Sting and the Foo Fighters

[01:09:58] and Jason's still doing Green Day

[01:10:01] and the other stuff he does.

[01:10:04] So, you know, we are,

[01:10:07] I hate to keep saying it,

[01:10:08] but the three of us are really blessed.

[01:10:11] Every one of our grandchildren,

[01:10:13] which we have six, are all doing music.

[01:10:17] Wow.

[01:10:18] Except Hunter, he's an artist.

[01:10:21] Right, but Tennessee, our grandson Tennessee,

[01:10:25] he's a great little sax player.

[01:10:27] And we didn't do anything.

[01:10:29] We didn't push him.

[01:10:30] That's Jason's son.

[01:10:31] And he plays like crazy now.

[01:10:34] And he's 14.

[01:10:35] All of Josh's kids are in music.

[01:10:37] Yeah.

[01:10:38] Everybody.

[01:10:39] Yeah, and the thing is they kind of morphed into it.

[01:10:43] You know, we had it around the house or whatever,

[01:10:45] but I never did say,

[01:10:46] hey, I want you guys to be a tuba player.

[01:10:49] I think you can get $5,000 if you learn to play the tuba.

[01:10:53] Yeah.

[01:10:54] They always think you went, huh?

[01:10:55] Yeah, yeah, I did.

[01:10:57] I told him that one time.

[01:10:59] There's nobody was doing it.

[01:11:00] And I said, look, whoever takes the tuba

[01:11:03] and really follows it for two or three years,

[01:11:05] I'm giving you five grand.

[01:11:08] That still didn't do it.

[01:11:09] Oh wow.

[01:11:10] Maybe if you threw in one of your Corvettes.

[01:11:13] Yeah, right.

[01:11:15] You know, that would have done it probably.

[01:11:19] Yeah.

[01:11:20] Stan, can I keep you another couple of minutes?

[01:11:22] I have a little standard set of questions

[01:11:24] that I ask everybody.

[01:11:25] It's sort of like inside the actor's studio, but dumber.

[01:11:30] If you wouldn't mind.

[01:11:32] No.

[01:11:33] All right, here we go.

[01:11:34] First one is what is your favorite Disney attraction?

[01:11:39] Probably Thunder Mountain would be one of them.

[01:11:43] And, you know, Small World, I guess, you know,

[01:11:47] it's just, it's such a tradition.

[01:11:50] Yeah, classic.

[01:11:51] What about your least favorite Disney attraction?

[01:11:55] How much time have you got?

[01:11:59] You know, I haven't thought about that.

[01:12:03] My least favorite is-

[01:12:05] Maybe the little train, Pacey Jones.

[01:12:08] Yeah, I guess I never looked at it

[01:12:10] as being favorites or not favorites.

[01:12:12] I just looked at it as being surrounding

[01:12:15] and engulfing my life with these attractions.

[01:12:19] Small World, you know?

[01:12:21] Yeah, I guess that's a dip.

[01:12:23] You have the most unique take on it

[01:12:26] because you've been there so long.

[01:12:27] Like we've had, you know, we talked to Don Dorsey.

[01:12:31] Oh yeah.

[01:12:32] You know, we've talked to a lot of people

[01:12:33] and who visit the park or whatever, but you kind of-

[01:12:36] You lived there.

[01:12:37] Yeah, you kind of spent, you know,

[01:12:39] your children basically grew up there over the summers,

[01:12:43] but you spent most of your adult life at these parks.

[01:12:45] So I guess it hits different a little bit for you.

[01:12:48] Yeah, it is.

[01:12:49] And it just worked that way.

[01:12:51] And I was comfortable with that

[01:12:53] and they were comfortable with me.

[01:12:56] So away we went.

[01:12:58] All right, well, let me all change these a little bit then.

[01:13:00] What old rides should they bring back to the parks?

[01:13:03] What old ride do you miss the most?

[01:13:07] Huh, yeah, let me think about that.

[01:13:10] Yeah.

[01:13:11] What?

[01:13:12] Oh yeah, the bucket rides.

[01:13:14] Yeah, the sky, sky, sky, sky ride.

[01:13:17] Bucket, yeah, whatever it is.

[01:13:18] I don't know what it was called.

[01:13:19] Eric, what's it called?

[01:13:20] You're a nerd.

[01:13:21] Skyway.

[01:13:22] Skyway.

[01:13:24] Yeah, the Skyway buckets.

[01:13:25] There you go.

[01:13:26] Eric is a poster behind them.

[01:13:27] Thanks, I'm on the show too.

[01:13:28] Yes.

[01:13:30] Yeah, sorry man.

[01:13:30] Because of the name of the thing.

[01:13:32] I keep talking, I'm sorry.

[01:13:34] Or I would put maybe four or five musicians

[01:13:37] in one of those carts

[01:13:38] and then four or five in the cart next to it

[01:13:42] and I made sure the musicians complimented each other.

[01:13:46] But then they would go down,

[01:13:48] they would go down Disneyland playing from the sky.

[01:13:53] How did that sound?

[01:13:54] That's awesome.

[01:13:56] Yeah, it was fun.

[01:13:57] Did it sound good at all?

[01:13:59] No.

[01:14:01] I love that part,

[01:14:03] that Stan, yeah, yeah, this is Eric,

[01:14:08] the nerd of the group here.

[01:14:10] I absolutely love that portion where you kept,

[01:14:13] you tried to reinvent the notion of having the band

[01:14:19] on like the carousel and playing.

[01:14:21] And you kept going around the park

[01:14:23] trying to find ways to do it in different places

[01:14:26] and it never worked.

[01:14:28] Yeah, yeah, mostly it didn't work.

[01:14:31] But when it did work, it really worked.

[01:14:34] Right.

[01:14:35] You know, so the company let me experiment a lot

[01:14:40] they were really good to me.

[01:14:42] And as a result, we did some fun wild things.

[01:14:46] Yeah.

[01:14:47] It's amazing.

[01:14:48] And then finally, my final question,

[01:14:50] if you could travel back in time and meet Walt Disney,

[01:14:54] what would you tell him?

[01:14:57] I need more money.

[01:14:58] That is probably the best answer we've ever gotten.

[01:15:03] That's a good question.

[01:15:04] Thanks.

[01:15:05] You know, I guess I would spend most of my time thanking him

[01:15:09] for everything that he's done for the world.

[01:15:13] And I really feel that way.

[01:15:16] It was just timing, but his timing was great.

[01:15:19] And the things that he did,

[01:15:22] were just revolutionized childhood.

[01:15:26] Well, you know what?

[01:15:27] That's a good turn of phrase, Stan.

[01:15:29] I revolutionized childhood.

[01:15:31] And that is so true.

[01:15:33] It is true.

[01:15:34] That is extremely accurate for my life personally.

[01:15:36] Yeah.

[01:15:38] Oh, good.

[01:15:39] I know you feel that way.

[01:15:40] And I know you're honest about it.

[01:15:41] And it comes through in your book,

[01:15:43] Music Mayhem and the Mouse.

[01:15:44] Go to your local bookstore and request them to buy it

[01:15:48] or buy it wherever you can.

[01:15:49] It's a great read.

[01:15:50] And there's so much more that we haven't covered in here.

[01:15:53] Like Stan was responsible for the Pleasure Island revamp

[01:15:56] in Disney World, book and live acts for downtown Disney.

[01:16:00] He filled in for Santa one year.

[01:16:01] Like this man has done it all.

[01:16:03] Yeah.

[01:16:04] And it's-

[01:16:05] I hired the Santa clauses for years.

[01:16:07] And one day they came to me,

[01:16:10] I was up in my office doing stuff.

[01:16:12] They came and said,

[01:16:12] Stan, Santa is sick.

[01:16:16] This is 20 minutes or a half hour before the parade.

[01:16:19] Oh no.

[01:16:20] You've got to do it.

[01:16:21] So I went, okay.

[01:16:22] So I went down and they put me in the Santa Claus suit

[01:16:27] with the beard and everything else.

[01:16:29] And away we went.

[01:16:31] I had a good time doing it.

[01:16:32] But one of my Santa clauses that I had

[01:16:36] would take a pint of vodka

[01:16:39] and he would put it under his beard,

[01:16:41] the long white beard.

[01:16:43] And then every so often he would just like

[01:16:46] turn a certain way, bend over

[01:16:49] and take a hit off of that vodka.

[01:16:52] And no one ever knew what he was doing.

[01:16:54] Yeah.

[01:16:55] How did you catch him?

[01:16:56] You just saw him or something?

[01:16:57] Yeah. I just saw him doing it.

[01:16:58] Oh no.

[01:17:01] God.

[01:17:02] Oh, that's funny.

[01:17:04] That's amazing, man.

[01:17:05] That is awesome.

[01:17:06] Yeah.

[01:17:07] You have these cute little anecdotes

[01:17:10] like when you were the first streakers

[01:17:13] at Walt Disney World.

[01:17:15] Yeah, I was.

[01:17:16] You and Bill Schilling.

[01:17:17] Yeah.

[01:17:18] Myself and a guy named Bill Schilling

[01:17:20] that came down there to Disney World

[01:17:24] with the entertainment division.

[01:17:25] But yeah, for sure.

[01:17:28] Yeah.

[01:17:28] Through the, which hotel was it?

[01:17:30] It was the suites at, I just lost the page.

[01:17:33] I forget now.

[01:17:35] Well, it had to be the Disneyland Hotel or the-

[01:17:38] No.

[01:17:39] The Contemporary?

[01:17:40] No, that was four.

[01:17:41] Yeah, it just says executive condos.

[01:17:42] So.

[01:17:43] Oh yes.

[01:17:45] Wherever that is.

[01:17:46] I forgot about that, man.

[01:17:50] You know what?

[01:17:51] I forgive you because you've had so much.

[01:17:54] The suburb was situated

[01:17:57] is that there were no fences from one house to another

[01:18:01] and you could just go from run backyard

[01:18:05] into the next backyard, into the next backyard.

[01:18:07] Yeah.

[01:18:08] So I would do that drunk

[01:18:11] and people would try and catch me

[01:18:14] and they couldn't do it.

[01:18:15] No, man.

[01:18:16] No.

[01:18:17] No.

[01:18:18] No.

[01:18:19] No.

[01:18:19] No.

[01:18:20] No.

[01:18:21] No.

[01:18:22] No.

[01:18:23] No.

[01:18:24] They tried to catch me and they couldn't do it.

[01:18:26] I've never heard of it in my entire life.

[01:18:30] Yeah.

[01:18:31] And at the top,

[01:18:33] well, that's when Josh was.

[01:18:36] Oh, you mean, oh, that time.

[01:18:38] Yeah, when you guys stopped.

[01:18:40] Yeah, I got Josh.

[01:18:42] My wife's water broke.

[01:18:44] And so I said, okay, we better get going.

[01:18:48] And so we all got in the car

[01:18:51] and all of a sudden for some reason,

[01:18:54] a cop happened to go in front of us in this neighborhood.

[01:18:58] I don't know what he was doing, but I stopped him

[01:19:00] and I said, hey, my wife is having a child right now,

[01:19:05] which was not quite the truth.

[01:19:06] I said, I need an escort.

[01:19:10] So they turned on the siren, they turned on the lights

[01:19:14] and they took me so fast down to the hospital,

[01:19:17] I thought I was gonna die.

[01:19:19] You thought Trisha was gonna die

[01:19:21] because here she is ready to have the baby

[01:19:23] and you're going over railroad tracks.

[01:19:25] Oh, I know.

[01:19:27] Yeah, my wife, poor my wife.

[01:19:28] Poor Trisha.

[01:19:30] Tara's like, I'm glad I missed that part.

[01:19:32] Yeah, really, it's like, phew.

[01:19:35] Well, speaking of Tara, you tell the story

[01:19:38] about how you guys fell in love

[01:19:39] and how you met at Downtown Disney, which is so cute.

[01:19:42] It's such a cute, it's very cute.

[01:19:45] I don't know, man, you've had a cute life.

[01:19:47] I love that.

[01:19:48] I really have.

[01:19:49] Yeah.

[01:19:49] And Tara has added so much class to my life.

[01:19:54] He says that because I'm right here next to him.

[01:19:56] Yeah, if you're in punching distance,

[01:19:59] I bet.

[01:20:00] I had a lot of class, but it was all low.

[01:20:02] Yes, yes, that's right.

[01:20:07] Stan, we'll let you go, man.

[01:20:09] It's getting late.

[01:20:10] I don't wanna keep it too long.

[01:20:12] I appreciate it, man.

[01:20:13] You're taking the time.

[01:20:16] Doing this was, I've been looking forward to this

[01:20:18] for a long time, so I really do appreciate it very much.

[01:20:21] I appreciate you guys for having me on, so thank you.

[01:20:26] Anytime, anytime, man.

[01:20:29] And Tara, thank you very much for facilitating as well.

[01:20:31] Great, it was fun listening.

[01:20:32] Yeah, good.

[01:20:34] Good.

[01:20:35] You guys are great.

[01:20:35] Oh, well, I appreciate that, man.

[01:20:37] You know what, I'll send you the link of the show

[01:20:38] if you want whenever I get it edited

[01:20:40] and make it sound better.

[01:20:43] Yeah.

[01:20:43] What's that shirt you have on?

[01:20:45] Oh, this is a shirt that I made.

[01:20:49] It's like the band The Misfits.

[01:20:53] It's their logo, but instead of the crimson ghost

[01:20:57] from the movie or whatever, it's Bob Chaypak.

[01:21:01] And it says Chaypak because my thing,

[01:21:04] I co-opt Churros into our thing a lot, our show,

[01:21:09] and Bob Chaypak because he got crapped on a lot

[01:21:13] and people were like, oh, I'm so glad he's gone,

[01:21:15] and then Bob Iger's here doing the worst,

[01:21:17] and it's just like, well, okay, what's gonna happen?

[01:21:20] So it's my way of thumbing my nose at people

[01:21:26] who don't like Bob Chaypak for no, I don't know.

[01:21:30] I think Disney fans think that CEOs have a lot more control

[01:21:34] than they really do.

[01:21:36] Yeah.

[01:21:37] Or projects that get, you know,

[01:21:40] like Iger's in his office going, what can we do now?

[01:21:44] And then the next day it happens or whatever.

[01:21:46] Things take years to do.

[01:21:48] So my opinion is Chaypak sort of got

[01:21:52] the rough end of the stick there for a little bit.

[01:21:54] Not that he was a great leader,

[01:21:56] but he wasn't dynamic at all, that's for sure.

[01:21:59] Yeah, I agree with you.

[01:22:01] Yeah, so I thought it'd be fun to make this shirt

[01:22:03] that nobody bought, so it's fine.

[01:22:06] I make a lot of my own clothes.

[01:22:09] I print them up and it's like,

[01:22:10] all right, this is what I'm wearing.

[01:22:13] That's great, good for you.

[01:22:15] I guess, yeah.

[01:22:17] Really had a good time with this, thank you.

[01:22:19] Oh, Sam.

[01:22:20] Thank you for taking care of us and doing this

[01:22:23] and I appreciate it so much.

[01:22:25] Man, thanks.

[01:22:26] Would you mind if I reached out later on

[01:22:27] and get you back on for a second show?

[01:22:30] No, let's do it next week.

[01:22:32] Let's do it.

[01:22:33] All right.

[01:22:34] I would do it.

[01:22:35] There's so much more to talk about.

[01:22:36] Yeah, no, I'd love to.

[01:22:38] This was fun.

[01:22:39] Sweet.

[01:22:40] Because a lot of people that interview me

[01:22:42] aren't as good as you.

[01:22:44] Oh my God.

[01:22:45] You know, so it makes it hard on me

[01:22:48] to be interviewed by someone that is kind of like

[01:22:50] disaccorded, but this has been great.

[01:22:53] I don't know what's going on.

[01:22:54] Yeah, this has been great.

[01:22:55] Thank you.

[01:22:56] I'm keeping this in the show.

[01:22:57] I'm not cutting this out.

[01:22:59] Now you're making me blush

[01:23:00] and making me feel good about myself

[01:23:01] and I don't know what to do with that information.

[01:23:04] Because once we hang up and we take a break,

[01:23:06] I'm gonna be like, oh my God, I failed.

[01:23:09] It sucks.

[01:23:10] And he hates me.

[01:23:12] Yeah, you can't compliment Jason that much.

[01:23:15] This is a lot.

[01:23:18] No, you guys were great.

[01:23:21] Oh, thanks, man.

[01:23:23] Asked the right questions

[01:23:24] and you gave me time to answer them.

[01:23:28] Well, good.

[01:23:29] I'm trying, I'm really interested.

[01:23:30] So yeah, we'll let you go.

[01:23:33] I'll wrap everything up.

[01:23:34] I'll send you a link and we'll,

[01:23:36] you know, I wanna stay in touch for sure

[01:23:38] and get you guys back on.

[01:23:40] Go on from here.

[01:23:41] If you have any questions about Disney or whatever,

[01:23:45] just call me at home.

[01:23:46] I don't have to be on the radio, you know,

[01:23:48] but call me anytime if you have questions

[01:23:50] about anything with Disney.

[01:23:52] Stan, I will message you tomorrow and get your phone number.

[01:23:56] What are you talking about?

[01:23:57] That's crazy.

[01:23:58] Thank you, dude.

[01:23:59] That's my phone?

[01:24:00] Yeah, give him to me.

[01:24:01] You want my phone number?

[01:24:02] Not right now.

[01:24:03] We're still on the air.

[01:24:04] Oh, okay.

[01:24:05] Yeah, you don't wanna give it to everyone.

[01:24:06] Let me take it.

[01:24:07] Let me go to, well, I can't mute you.

[01:24:10] I can't.

[01:24:11] I will, let me message you.

[01:24:13] Let me message you tomorrow.

[01:24:14] Okay.

[01:24:15] Is that cool?

[01:24:16] Perfect.

[01:24:17] Yeah, absolutely perfect.

[01:24:18] Sweet.

[01:24:18] Thanks so much, you guys.

[01:24:19] Thanks, guys.

[01:24:21] This was fun for us, for sure.

[01:24:22] Awesome.

[01:24:23] Bye-bye.

[01:24:24] I can't wait.

[01:24:25] I can't wait.

[01:24:25] Thank you very much.

[01:24:26] We'll let you guys go.

[01:24:27] We're gonna take a quick break, everyone.

[01:24:28] We're gonna come back and take a breather.

[01:24:30] Great.

[01:24:31] Yeah, all right.

[01:24:32] We'll see you guys.

[01:24:33] Bye.

[01:24:34] Bye-bye.

[01:24:35] Bye.

[01:24:36] Okay, we're taking a break.

[01:24:37] Let's take a break.

[01:24:38] We're taking a break.

[01:24:39] Oh, man.

[01:24:40] We'll be back.

[01:24:40] I need to go, I don't know, soak my head for a second.

[01:24:46] Back to Ears Up, where the opinions never stop, ever.

[01:24:51] Dude.

[01:24:52] That was incredible.

[01:24:53] I had to get a beer.

[01:24:54] I mean, like, I don't know, Stan hears it.

[01:24:58] I didn't have to get one.

[01:25:01] Stan, but I did.

[01:25:03] Oh, I loved him so much.

[01:25:05] Dude.

[01:25:06] That was great.

[01:25:07] That was so good.

[01:25:08] Oh my God, it was so good.

[01:25:09] And like, I'm not used to this feeling

[01:25:12] after a show that I did a good job.

[01:25:14] Like happy?

[01:25:15] Yeah, yeah.

[01:25:16] Like happy in what I did.

[01:25:19] Yeah, you did great.

[01:25:21] Nobody makes me feel this way, Taryn.

[01:25:23] By the way, Stan does.

[01:25:24] It's not my job to make you feel happy.

[01:25:26] But Stan did.

[01:25:28] Okay?

[01:25:29] I'll always compare you to Stan

[01:25:32] and how he made me feel that one day.

[01:25:34] Oh man, and he's celebrating with a celebration.

[01:25:37] Wow.

[01:25:38] Well, you know what?

[01:25:39] I pulled this out of the fridge and I go,

[01:25:40] it's a celebration, bitches.

[01:25:44] Here's some music that I got for,

[01:25:45] that I put together for Stan,

[01:25:47] but we just didn't get to it.

[01:25:48] This is what I'm saying.

[01:25:49] It's a 400 page book.

[01:25:52] I can see why.

[01:25:53] He just is such a good storyteller.

[01:25:55] And like, just, well, he's a good storyteller,

[01:25:59] but also just the stories themselves are so insane.

[01:26:06] Oh, right.

[01:26:07] And I'm not exaggerating at all when I say,

[01:26:10] if you put this in a movie, you would not believe it.

[01:26:14] Even one of these stories, you would go,

[01:26:16] that's hack writing.

[01:26:18] There's no way this happened.

[01:26:19] Get the book.

[01:26:20] I'm sorry, but the New Year's baby story?

[01:26:23] That's not even in the book.

[01:26:25] Well-

[01:26:26] That's not even in the book.

[01:26:27] I was just-

[01:26:28] Or the, it was,

[01:26:30] Taryn mentioned,

[01:26:31] I'm assuming it was Taryn who mentioned in the chat,

[01:26:34] like how Jason was laughing while reading the book.

[01:26:37] I'm reading passages to my wife

[01:26:39] as I'm reading the book too.

[01:26:40] Like, okay, get this.

[01:26:42] He's moving to LA and he goes to his fiance

[01:26:48] and says, hey, I'm moving to LA.

[01:26:50] And they, somebody stole his car with his tubas in it.

[01:26:56] His two extremely expensive famous tubas.

[01:27:01] Yeah, and there's, so there's a whole passage

[01:27:04] in their whole section about before he did that,

[01:27:07] he was like teaching under eight or under age, geez.

[01:27:10] He was teaching under privileged kids in Chicago.

[01:27:14] Yeah, yeah.

[01:27:15] Like the music program.

[01:27:16] And he had all this stuff in his car.

[01:27:18] And it was, it was that, maybe I'm confusing the two,

[01:27:21] but anyway-

[01:27:22] Well, he did get run out of town.

[01:27:23] He got ran out of town.

[01:27:24] Yeah.

[01:27:25] I forget why, oh, it was Martin Luther King Jr.

[01:27:27] had got assassinated.

[01:27:28] Right, right.

[01:27:29] And so the teachers or other students

[01:27:33] or whatever at that place knew him.

[01:27:34] He was the only white person around.

[01:27:36] And he was like, they were like, look,

[01:27:37] because of your skin color, people might be coming for you.

[01:27:41] So we're going to have to sneak you out.

[01:27:43] So he was like, ran out the back of the thing,

[01:27:45] jumped in someone's car.

[01:27:46] And I think they switched cars or something like that.

[01:27:48] It's like, again, you would see this,

[01:27:51] I would see this in a movie and I would look at you

[01:27:53] and go, that would never happen.

[01:27:55] Are you kidding me?

[01:27:56] Just because he's white, come on.

[01:27:57] But it happened.

[01:27:58] It literally happened.

[01:28:00] Stuff like that, dude.

[01:28:01] It's bizarre and wild.

[01:28:04] And it's such a great book.

[01:28:06] And I can sit here, I have pages marked

[01:28:09] about just like little quips and stuff.

[01:28:12] And we've been talking about this for weeks now,

[01:28:17] trying to get him on and trying to get this put together.

[01:28:21] And Jason and I were texting earlier today,

[01:28:24] like, okay, here's what we've got to go over.

[01:28:27] And I've got all these notes about things

[01:28:29] that we never even got to.

[01:28:30] No, and I thought about it the whole interview.

[01:28:33] Oh no, and there was,

[01:28:34] I kept trying to find a way to fit it in.

[01:28:37] And then I went, why?

[01:28:39] Why?

[01:28:40] We've got gold here.

[01:28:42] Why push it?

[01:28:43] Why try to put in my thing?

[01:28:45] Why talk about the Pleasure Island?

[01:28:47] Why talk about Tokyo Disneyland?

[01:28:50] If he's going to come back, sure, we could talk about it.

[01:28:53] I would love to have him back.

[01:28:54] My God, dude.

[01:28:55] But yeah, we talked about enough.

[01:28:57] Yeah.

[01:28:58] Oh man.

[01:28:59] This is one of those episodes

[01:29:01] where I'm just sitting here going,

[01:29:02] I'm listening to my favorite podcast.

[01:29:05] Me too!

[01:29:06] I was doing that too.

[01:29:06] I was just like, oh yeah, that's right.

[01:29:08] Sometimes maybe I talk.

[01:29:10] Yeah, it was, man, it was good.

[01:29:12] And just, you know, like when I was laughing

[01:29:14] and he was like, yeah, they tried to catch me

[01:29:16] but they couldn't or whatever.

[01:29:17] I'm like, I died.

[01:29:19] And that's the kind of the voice that he has in this book.

[01:29:23] It's really funny.

[01:29:25] I guess I don't want to like oversell it.

[01:29:27] It's just very honest take on a man's life

[01:29:30] and his career and he's still doing it, right?

[01:29:32] So, and that's the beauty of it.

[01:29:34] It's like, you meet people who say they love music

[01:29:36] but this man has taught music at the highest levels,

[01:29:40] at the lowest levels,

[01:29:41] he's toured the world playing music.

[01:29:43] And it's just to, you know, he talks about like

[01:29:46] when he retired from Disney,

[01:29:48] he was still booking bands for downtown Disney for free

[01:29:53] because he just loved doing it.

[01:29:54] And he loved, he had that passion

[01:29:55] for just making sure musicians got gigs.

[01:30:00] Right.

[01:30:01] Yeah, and he's such an advocate for it too.

[01:30:03] Like it was funny.

[01:30:05] I didn't want to go too deep into it.

[01:30:07] So I didn't really speak up,

[01:30:08] but like when they were talking about how he,

[01:30:10] he was so committed to making sure

[01:30:12] that those musicians got paid right

[01:30:13] and got what they needed and all of that stuff.

[01:30:17] And Tara at one point even said something

[01:30:20] about like getting a living wage.

[01:30:22] And it's funny because like back when he was doing this

[01:30:25] that was a novel concept.

[01:30:30] Well, yeah.

[01:30:30] It's not even something that was talked about.

[01:30:31] A musician making a career out of being a musician.

[01:30:35] Right.

[01:30:36] Like Disneyland, no less.

[01:30:38] Yeah.

[01:30:39] I mean, the guys are virtuoso.

[01:30:40] I mean, reading the things that he has done

[01:30:44] and I need to look up some of the performances

[01:30:49] that he references in the book

[01:30:51] where the thing that sticks with me is where he writes

[01:30:55] about how one of his like audition tapes

[01:30:59] was playing the piccolo part from,

[01:31:05] Stars and Stripes Forever on the tuba.

[01:31:08] For a band geek, you know,

[01:31:10] you know the counter melody in Stars and Stripes Forever

[01:31:14] and you know the piccolo part

[01:31:16] and you know it's the

[01:31:17] pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa

[01:31:20] and thinking of him playing that on a tuba

[01:31:24] is in fricking credible.

[01:31:28] Well, here, here let's play.

[01:31:29] So this, I think this song here

[01:31:32] is his play that country tuba cowboy,

[01:31:35] I think is what it's called.

[01:31:37] So this is a song he talked about writing

[01:31:40] and then sent into his friend who worked at Hee Haw.

[01:31:43] This is how we got on Hee Haw,

[01:31:44] but then he re-recorded it with the Vandals.

[01:31:47] So it fades in.

[01:31:49] I did a Jeremy where it like, you know,

[01:31:51] you fade in with the original

[01:31:52] and then you go into the remake.

[01:31:53] Okay.

[01:31:58] ♪ Cowboy, cowboy, play that country tuba ♪

[01:32:02] ♪ Cowboy, play that country tuba ♪

[01:32:06] ♪ Play that country tuba, play that country tuba, cowboy ♪

[01:32:11] Well, musician stories have made the rounds

[01:32:13] about traveling bands and honky tonk towns,

[01:32:15] but for tuba players, this has gotta be a first.

[01:32:19] Well, this one starts like they all do,

[01:32:21] I've been traveling hard for a day or two

[01:32:23] and I stopped at this joint to quench my thirst.

[01:32:27] Up walked this big mountain man,

[01:32:29] said what you got there, a garbage can?

[01:32:31] I said, excuse me, that's my tuba if you please.

[01:32:35] He said, great, play a country song

[01:32:36] so me and my buddy's gonna sing along.

[01:32:38] And I told him I only play with symphonies.

[01:32:45] He slammed his fist and spit out his beer

[01:32:47] and his body language made it very clear

[01:32:50] this wasn't gonna be just another B-flat day.

[01:32:53] That's when he cocked his 30-ounce sticks

[01:32:55] and boy, I let out with some country mix.

[01:32:57] I never thought I'd hear my tuba play.

[01:33:05] What a wild song.

[01:33:08] It's funny, like kind of like a David Allen Co.

[01:33:10] story kind of thing, it's good, I like it, it's fun.

[01:33:14] Very silly.

[01:33:15] Yeah, and then I just had some other stuff

[01:33:17] that he recorded off an album called Tuba is Beautiful.

[01:33:21] This one I think is Tennessee Waltz, Nerd'll correct me.

[01:33:36] Is that what it is, Eric?

[01:33:38] Oh, I'm nerd.

[01:33:39] You're nerd, yeah.

[01:33:40] Who was I referring to, Taron?

[01:33:42] Yeah, I don't know anything.

[01:33:44] I knew you were.

[01:33:46] Yeah.

[01:33:48] Curse you.

[01:33:49] There's another one off that same album.

[01:33:52] I think it's called like Fat Tuba or something.

[01:33:54] I don't know.

[01:33:55] I don't know.

[01:33:56] I don't know.

[01:33:57] I don't know.

[01:33:57] I don't know.

[01:33:58] I don't know.

[01:33:59] I don't know.

[01:34:00] I don't know.

[01:34:01] I don't know.

[01:34:02] I don't know.

[01:34:02] I don't know.

[01:34:03] I don't know.

[01:34:04] I don't know.

[01:34:05] Fat Tuba or something like that.

[01:34:07] I have it on my board,

[01:34:12] but it's like truncated.

[01:34:14] So it just has Stan Friese over and over again

[01:34:16] and not the name of the actual song.

[01:34:18] So that's me not knowing.

[01:34:19] Just Stan Friese over and over.

[01:34:21] It could be Tennessee Waltz.

[01:34:22] I don't actually know that song.

[01:34:24] But it sure sounds like one.

[01:34:26] This one's called like Fat Bottom or something.

[01:34:28] This one's called, like, Fat Bottom or something.

[01:34:31] Yeah.

[01:34:32] Yeah.

[01:34:33] It's like yackety sax but with a tuba.

[01:34:43] Oh man, oh you know what I wanted to do?

[01:34:49] I wanted to keep playing the credits to the song to Deep Throat because I swear to God

[01:34:55] there's a melody for Christmas Song.

[01:34:58] This.

[01:35:01] What song is this?

[01:35:05] Da da da na na na na na na na na na na na na na na.

[01:35:11] What is that song?

[01:35:13] Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

[01:35:20] That's Ode to Joy.

[01:35:22] Yeah!

[01:35:23] That's Beethoven!

[01:35:25] There you go.

[01:35:29] It's Beethoven.

[01:35:33] Song kicks, I don't know man.

[01:35:36] Just look it up, just look it up, Deep Throat opening credits.

[01:35:40] You can just look up DT opening credits if you don't want to pervert your search.

[01:35:44] It is everything you've ever thought about a porn opening classically.

[01:35:49] Where there's like a part where she's like walking on the shore or whatever.

[01:35:54] She gets in a car and it's one take and it's like 30 seconds of her walking, the camera pans

[01:36:00] and she walks around the car, doesn't cut, and it's like inside the car moves and she stops.

[01:36:05] The car stops and then you see a boat on the water and there's no cut.

[01:36:09] And then it keeps going and then the car moves.

[01:36:12] It's just bad, it's just so bad.

[01:36:15] The 70s loved lingering on just movement for several minutes in every movie.

[01:36:23] It's very, oh yeah, well that's what I say sometimes about like storytelling back then

[01:36:31] in 70s and 80s was very different than it is now.

[01:36:33] So movies don't really hit the same way sometimes.

[01:36:36] Also like at some point in the credits there's a hair in the gate.

[01:36:42] You know whenever you see like a hair in an old movie, it's on the gate of where the camera

[01:36:48] shooting the film is, right?

[01:36:50] It's a hair in the gate.

[01:36:52] It's really gross.

[01:36:54] Yeah, anyway, Ode to Joy, thank you very much.

[01:36:58] See, I knew having a nerd would pay off eventually.

[01:37:03] Yes, I did two things tonight.

[01:37:06] Anyway, that's what's going on everybody.

[01:37:10] Let's get back to our normal.

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[01:38:20] One more thing about Stan.

[01:38:22] In this book, I think this is what he was trying to talk about.

[01:38:25] He was remembering a little bit about like throwing a party and getting a bunch of people drunk.

[01:38:33] Okay.

[01:38:34] I think he was talking about, and I see now I'm a Stan Fries historian.

[01:38:39] When he was working at Edison High School and doing the marching band, he was like such

[01:38:43] a popular teacher that he would let his students borrow his Corvette.

[01:38:48] Oh my gosh.

[01:38:49] And just like run errands or whatever, and they would be super respectful and they would

[01:38:53] come back and it would be like washed.

[01:38:55] Well, at one point they installed a brand new eight track player with speakers in the door.

[01:39:01] They bought him a, they upgraded his car stereo.

[01:39:04] And he's like, I'm not asking how they bought it.

[01:39:08] Yeah.

[01:39:10] Wow.

[01:39:11] But he goes, because I was the new guy on staff, I was selected to put together a little

[01:39:15] party for a few retiring teachers in the spring.

[01:39:18] A responsibility that irked me to no end.

[01:39:22] When you're young and a bit arrogant like I was, you sometimes think you're above such

[01:39:27] things like laying out punch and cookie trays for the faculty to alleviate some frustrations.

[01:39:34] I decided to spike the punch with 190 proof ever clear grain alcohol.

[01:39:39] Wow.

[01:39:42] Ever clear.

[01:39:43] And you know, he didn't buy Oreo.

[01:39:46] He bought he bought the the off brand.

[01:39:49] Oh, this guy.

[01:39:50] I love him.

[01:39:51] Oh yeah, for sure.

[01:39:53] And so, you know, he was in I guess it was in a dry county or ever clear was prohibited

[01:39:58] in Minnesota.

[01:39:59] So you'd like drive across state lines and buy it.

[01:40:02] And just the level of dedication to some of these pranks he pulls.

[01:40:06] And yeah, he says after about an hour, half an hour, I realized I may have treated the

[01:40:11] teachers to a little too much alcohol because some of my victims became emotional.

[01:40:16] Actually breaking down and crying.

[01:40:18] Oh yeah.

[01:40:23] Anyway, oh, how funny.

[01:40:24] So many great stories in this book.

[01:40:26] Can I tell you, though, that he didn't mention this and you haven't mentioned this, so I'm

[01:40:31] not sure if you know this, but in front of his house.

[01:40:34] Oh yeah, the tuba tree.

[01:40:35] He has a tuba tree.

[01:40:36] He has a tuba tree that is apparently like an attraction.

[01:40:38] Like it's like it attracts people to come and take pictures in front of.

[01:40:42] Yeah, and I guess and you know, it's like out there.

[01:40:44] So I guess he lives in Seal Beach.

[01:40:46] Oh really?

[01:40:47] Where my grandma was at and I meant to bring that up.

[01:40:50] She was at seizure world.

[01:40:52] And yeah, it's so funny to know.

[01:40:56] Tuba tree.

[01:40:57] It's just a tree with a bunch of tubas in it.

[01:40:59] Yeah.

[01:41:00] Love it.

[01:41:03] I don't know.

[01:41:04] I think I'm just relaxing.

[01:41:06] Yeah, I'm basking in the glow.

[01:41:08] If you want to bask in the glow of park information like I just have or something like that.

[01:41:13] If you want to walk the stand freeze trail and you want to go to Disney World and then

[01:41:17] go over to Disneyland, you can do one or both, whatever you want to do.

[01:41:21] Contact concierge.

[01:41:22] You go to concierge.com and they'll book your flight.

[01:41:25] They'll book all the hotels.

[01:41:27] You just tell them where to go or tell them when you want to go and give them your credit

[01:41:30] card.

[01:41:31] They'll handle all the rest.

[01:41:32] They'll help you along your way.

[01:41:34] They'll make reservations for you for dining, for anything you want to do.

[01:41:38] Actually, Anthony, my nephew Anthony is going to Disneyland in June.

[01:41:45] So I'm like, okay, got to hit up concierge.

[01:41:48] Absolutely.

[01:41:49] And so that'll be fun for him.

[01:41:51] I was like, look, you don't have to do anything.

[01:41:53] I like not doing stuff.

[01:41:55] I go, yeah, this is perfect.

[01:41:57] Perfect.

[01:41:58] That's what you got to do, man.

[01:42:00] Don't do a single thing because he he's asking me, he goes, actually, this is a good, this

[01:42:01] is a topic to chat about real fast.

[01:42:03] Then we'll get out of here.

[01:42:05] He's like, yeah, I'm going with my with my partner and her like two kids and they're,

[01:42:10] you know, I don't know, 10 and 14 or something like that.

[01:42:13] He goes, do you because I want to make a big splash.

[01:42:16] I want to splash out for them.

[01:42:18] Do I do we go to the Grand Californian or do we stay at the hotel?

[01:42:23] We usually stay at the difference is like $2,000 and they're only going to be there

[01:42:27] for like two nights.

[01:42:28] I would say it's like $800 a night for the Grand Californian or whatever they're going.

[01:42:32] Yeah.

[01:42:34] What would you say?

[01:42:36] Oh, I mean, if it's if it's only two nights go all out.

[01:42:40] Yeah.

[01:42:42] Well, I think that's it's too late because that's all they can afford.

[01:42:44] They have a budget.

[01:42:46] They have a budget of like five grand.

[01:42:48] And so a lot of that is going to hotel.

[01:42:50] Right.

[01:42:52] So his thing was like, I can either spend it on hotel and then limit what we can do

[01:42:55] in the park or because I want to splash out, we can do a bunch of stuff in the park

[01:43:00] and I don't have to worry about, you know, then we can just stay somewhere else

[01:43:04] and maybe do a kick and read tour in the park and do some really great meals.

[01:43:09] Yeah.

[01:43:10] I'm staying like a Marriott close by and still have a nice enough room.

[01:43:14] Yeah.

[01:43:15] Yeah.

[01:43:16] That's kind of what I told him.

[01:43:18] I go, look, if you if you want to go out and drop cash on these kids and like,

[01:43:21] you know, sort of, you know, give them a really nice vacation, then then I would

[01:43:25] do that.

[01:43:26] I would stay off site.

[01:43:27] Yeah.

[01:43:28] Or if you're not going to go back to the hotel, because in my opinion,

[01:43:31] if you're staying at the California or if you're staying on the resort,

[01:43:34] the only reason to do that is if you're going back during the day at some point

[01:43:38] to then go back to the park at night.

[01:43:40] Yeah.

[01:43:41] You're going to go hang out at the pool.

[01:43:43] You're going to go sit around in the lobby and read a book.

[01:43:46] I don't know.

[01:43:47] But yeah.

[01:43:49] But you're you're with, you know, Anthony's kind of basically a child anyways.

[01:43:52] So he's you know, he's not going to he's not going to want to go home either,

[01:43:57] although he is in pain all the time.

[01:43:59] And, you know, I got to say, as somebody who was a child once barely,

[01:44:04] I have experience in this and I absolutely loved staying in hotels.

[01:44:10] It was like such a fun part of going on a trip.

[01:44:13] Sure.

[01:44:14] But I could not tell you what hotel it was.

[01:44:17] It's just the fact that you're in a hotel that's fun and exciting.

[01:44:19] I don't think it matters to a kid what hotel it is.

[01:44:22] Oh, yeah. No.

[01:44:23] And I think his his question was like, will the kids care?

[01:44:27] And I said, probably not.

[01:44:29] That's why I'm saying I don't think so.

[01:44:31] No, because they're going to want to be at the park, especially if they got,

[01:44:34] you know, sugar daddy hooking them up with.

[01:44:36] Oh, yeah.

[01:44:37] They'd rather get the toys than.

[01:44:39] Yeah. He's like he's like, I could then, you know,

[01:44:41] like the boy and I can do like the lightsaber thing.

[01:44:43] Then that's what they want.

[01:44:45] That's what they don't go for.

[01:44:46] Yeah, that's the right choice.

[01:44:48] There you go. I think that's we solved it.

[01:44:50] Yeah.

[01:44:52] We solved it.

[01:44:53] I have one last thing to say because I've been now staring at pictures of

[01:44:57] this tuba tree because I'm fascinated and there's a picture of Stan and Tara

[01:45:01] and Tara is beautiful.

[01:45:03] Gorgeous, right?

[01:45:04] Oh, my gosh.

[01:45:05] She's a model for 20 years.

[01:45:07] Stan is a lucky guy.

[01:45:09] Yeah, he's just got luck around.

[01:45:11] His first wife is really pretty, too.

[01:45:13] I haven't seen her, but yeah.

[01:45:14] And and yeah, look at the freeze.

[01:45:16] Good man.

[01:45:18] What a great guy. What a great life.

[01:45:20] He talks about being single for like 17 years and he's like, I don't know if

[01:45:22] I was ready.

[01:45:24] And then I met her and I was like, OK, I'm ready now.

[01:45:26] That's nice.

[01:45:28] I mean, it's a lot sweeter in the book.

[01:45:30] I'm sure than I put it.

[01:45:32] Oh, yeah.

[01:45:34] All right. Let's get out of here.

[01:45:36] All right.

[01:45:37] What a fun show.

[01:45:39] It was. It was good.

[01:45:41] Yeah. And once again, my genius shown through.

[01:45:42] I mean, I love the sound clips from Stan, too.

[01:45:44] You can use over and over again.

[01:45:46] I know like you asked all the right questions.

[01:45:48] I tell you, you know what?

[01:45:50] And I want to see.

[01:45:52] Here's how I'm going to ruin it.

[01:45:54] Here's exactly how I'm going to stop the music.

[01:45:56] Let me tell you how to ruin it.

[01:45:58] Because maybe what if it was terrible?

[01:46:00] No, no, no.

[01:46:02] Get this. What if it was awful but he was just building me up?

[01:46:04] Because that's what he does because he's such a good teacher.

[01:46:09] He is a good teacher, but he also has a lot of talent.

[01:46:12] He's a good teacher.

[01:46:14] He's a good teacher, but he also wants to give you his phone number.

[01:46:16] So you want to give me your phone number right now?

[01:46:18] Like that?

[01:46:20] You can't even talk your way out of this one.

[01:46:22] You just call me.

[01:46:24] Whatever job you imagine.

[01:46:26] I do a lot.

[01:46:30] Call me any questions you have.

[01:46:32] Just call me.

[01:46:33] I'm home.

[01:46:35] And you know what?

[01:46:37] After talking to him, I won.

[01:46:39] He's 100 percent genuine, genuine on that.

[01:46:41] Absolutely.

[01:46:42] He's a great guy.

[01:46:44] He helps people with money, whatever.

[01:46:46] He just helps people in any way that they can.

[01:46:48] And again, it reminded me of Rolly.

[01:46:50] Rolly's wife, I forget her name now.

[01:46:52] Where she was like, yeah, Rolly said any questions you have, just email us.

[01:46:54] We'll tell you all about it.

[01:46:56] And I actually was able to do that.

[01:46:58] You did?

[01:47:00] Yeah, it was cool.

[01:47:02] I was like, wow, this is great.

[01:47:04] Fun people.

[01:47:06] I love it.

[01:47:08] Maybe there's hope for me yet, Taryn.

[01:47:10] Maybe.

[01:47:12] I don't know.

[01:47:14] I don't understand.

[01:47:16] Music, mayhem in the mouth.

[01:47:18] My two bizarre life by this book.

[01:47:20] It's a great book.

[01:47:22] If you like Disneyland Park history with a lot of humor and humility, to be honest in here.

[01:47:26] Fantastic read.

[01:47:28] It's an easy read.

[01:47:30] I read this book in a week.

[01:47:32] Most of it in a week.

[01:47:34] I did start it a little bit sooner, but I crushed this book.

[01:47:36] It's great.

[01:47:38] It's a fantastic book.

[01:47:40] He was actually literally laughing out loud.

[01:47:42] Yeah.

[01:47:44] And me no read so good either.

[01:47:46] We are on Twitch.

[01:47:48] So go to twitch.tv slash ears up.

[01:47:51] Follow us over there.

[01:47:53] I'm going to be releasing a schedule here soon.

[01:47:55] Things I'm going to do over there.

[01:47:57] I'm going to do some research streaming.

[01:47:59] I'm going to do some Disney adjacent games.

[01:48:01] Some indie games.

[01:48:03] Just kind of like sit down and play and chat basically.

[01:48:05] So if you want to chat, hang out, watch or play some games.

[01:48:07] Or, you know, do whatever.

[01:48:09] Eventually I might stream the show there too.

[01:48:10] So that'll be fun also.

[01:48:12] But we're getting a little following on Twitch.

[01:48:14] So go ahead and follow us over there.

[01:48:16] That'd be really great.

[01:48:18] Let me see if I did this chat thing right.

[01:48:20] I probably didn't.

[01:48:22] Anyway, thank you very much everybody for tuning in.

[01:48:24] Everything else.

[01:48:26] We have a website.

[01:48:28] You know what it is ears up podcast.com.

[01:48:30] Connect with us and until next time we'll see.

[01:48:32] I can't end now.

[01:48:34] I got to start my musical over.

[01:48:36] Oh no.

[01:48:38] One more time.

[01:48:40] Thank you very much everybody.

[01:48:42] Until next time we'll see you in the parks.