It's very Midwestern, a lot of welps and oops. Oops. Oops. Yeah. Was it Puff Daddy?
How's he doing? Producer Chris might be the most interesting person you've ever met. I don't think I like being touched by strangers. Chris, look that up. You can't.
I'll look it up. No, I'm on it. You got it? You can look it up. No, I'll look it up.
Here we go. We're professionals. Did you have batting cages at Birdies? Um not officially. Yeah, he had shingles.
I don't know if that played into So, what do you do? You can't possibly do this for a living. Hey everybody, welcome in to your favorite 90 minutes of the week. This is Josh Cecil. This is the Ham Co Live Hot Ticket Podcast, part of the Gate In Podcast Network.
We want to thank Nate Spangle and his team for all the awesome stuff they're doing for us and for the great state of Indiana. And uh we appreciate them. My name is Josh Cecil. I'm the editor-in-chief of hamcolive.com. With me, as always, by golly, he's a global icon and national treasure.
That's Tyler Meacham. Tyler, say hello. Hello everybody. Over there behind Video Village, he is faceless. He is a disembodied voice and he is has no microphone.
So. He got demoted. What happened last episode? Well, that subscriber count is not coming up. And so, we're slowly taking away things.
You got to earn it around here. Listen, once we get to 1,000 subscribers, we're going to show, reveal Producer Chris's face. And so, we need to get that subscriber count up so we can also afford a new microphone and get Chris's face on camera. Chrisfer, say hello. Shout it.
Good morning. Uh for some reason that felt like you were lost in a forest. like from the bottom of a cave or something. Are you trapped in a well? Well, you're in luck cuz we have two firefighters.
Hey, we got two guests in studio today from the Fishers Fire Department / Brotherhood Designs. We'll talk more about what Brotherhood Designs is, but say hello Rob, Scott. Gentlemen. Hey. Hello.
Good morning. Welcome. Um we're going to talk about a great event that they are hosting or they're producing. How do you want to say this? Hosting, producing?
Yeah, all of it. Kind of both. Yeah. Okay. Hosting, producing, promoting uh out at Federal Hill in July, the Heroes and Healing Music Festival.
And we're going to help them promote that a little bit today. But first, as always, we like to talk about our weekends. Tyler? How's it going? I had a great weekend.
Did you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I see if I can One for the books, boys.
Uh it was a family vacation to Holiday World. Um but and then that was great, you know, I took my three boys. We had a great time, but it it was far far overshadowed by the fish I caught. Look at this. Look at this large mouth.
Yeah. Look at that bad boy. Well, I'll see if I can drop that into Yeah, if you're audio only, picture a a whale of a fish. I could have stuck my whole arm down that fish's mouth. How many fish on that line?
I caught two fish on the fish. I caught two fish on one line. I had a little bluegill on there. And I thought that was your bait. No, I had a bluegill on the line and I see this bigger fish come to chase after.
I was like, "There's a largie that's going to attack this bluegill." So, I kept the bluegill out there and ended up hooking them both and that was best fish I've ever caught. That's a twofer. That's a twofer, baby. And uh is this a catch and release situation? Yeah, I put him back.
Yeah, well I guess you're camping. Yeah, what am I going to do with it? Yeah. Eat it? No.
No. Over the fire? Yeah. What if traumatized the kids? How was Holiday World?
It's a blast, man. I think that's one of the best places to take kids, especially younger kids, just the amount of rides they have for, you know, the 8 9-year-olds, the 4 5-year-olds. It's great spot, clean, fun, great water park, highly recommend. I'll be there in 2 weeks. Yeah?
Yeah. Free drinks. Free drinks, free sunscreen. Sunscreen, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, good life shows, too. Saw a hypnotist. Is that right? any hypnotism? Um no.
No, I I've been on stage for a hypnotist. Did they get you? No. No. No.
I think the ADHD probably helped. Too strong. Yeah. Like a steel trap. Um yeah, it was weird.
I say I like Here's the thing Here's my I don't know if it's real. I saw it happen. But these people weren't plants. Like they had families. I I don't think they're plants.
So here's the one I went to was this is at the Funny Bone in Evansville when I was in the college. Group of us went. I went up and they always do like some sort of um like sort of test to see how Yep. how I don't know lucid you are. Yep.
But it was like the one I was doing was like you were holding books or whatever Yep, that's what I saw. And and and so like the people that are more suggestive or or like fall into the suggestion more easily stay up on stage and everybody else goes down. And then he does a whole you know, dog and pony show Mhm. with with these people. But my buddy that I went with stayed out there the whole time.
And then, you know, like when we got back to uh the school, he was like, "Yeah, I just I was just acting." Like, you know, he was just cool. Yeah, I know. So, I don't I I think I wonder if that's everybody or if it's actually it actually works. But, I've heard people like stop smoking from Yeah. hypnotism.
Yeah, I I don't know. It looked real. It looked real, but you want to believe. It's like magic. You want to believe it.
Yeah. Yeah, have you guys ever been hypnotized? Scott? No. Rob?
No. Mhm. Chris? Just by the beauty of my wife. Oh, wow.
Getting points early. There it is. I wonder if she's listening. Mhm. I'm sure you'll tell her that you you just say no, she's not.
Everything suggests Our analysts Nobody's listening. That's good. So, you did Holiday World. Yeah. And then, anything else?
No, took the whole weekend, yeah. Nice. It was good. Great. What was your favorite ride?
Um probably the Legend. It was Charlie's first big ride, and he was committed to waiting in line, and did it, loved it, and rode every big ride after that. That's awesome. Yeah. How old were the kids?
Um I don't know. This is honesty hour. I don't know how old they are. This old? This Tall enough to ride?
I don't know. What I don't What is this a quiz? Five, eight, and 13. Huh. Good.
Five and eight's good ages. Yeah. We went, I guess it was 2 years ago now, 3 years, but it was super hot, so everybody was at the water park. Yeah. And so, the wait to roller coasters was like 5, 10 minutes.
That's great. anything. Yeah, so we just zipped through it a bunch times. Yeah. It's fun.
Good little park. Yeah. Weird themes. Yeah. Like there was a Thanksgiving ride.
Did you ride the Thanksgiving ride? With the big coaster, the Voyage? Or there's Good Gravy? Good Charlie and Henry rode that together. It's great.
Fun little ride. But it was like you're going through someone's the waiting line is you know you're going through someone's house and there's a dinner table for Thanksgiving. It was like It's interesting. Yeah. Anyways, I mean they've stuck to the theming.
They sure did. Yeah. They sure did. Used to be Santa Claus Land. Yeah, that's right.
When we were kids I think it was just Santa Claus Land, wasn't it? Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I mean when I was a kid it didn't exist. Yeah, it was steam powered.
It's an old steam steam locomotive. just this morning Sam asked me how old you are. I go I don't know how old do you think he is? He goes 72? He He might have been fed some intel by Chris yesterday.
Oh, what a jerk. All right. Uh what did you guys do this weekend? I worked 48 at firehouse, so You did what? Worked a 48.
So I was there all day Saturday, Sunday. Got off Monday morning. That's two days. It is two days. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Any uh It's uh We'll come back to We'll come back to that cuz I have questions about your lives. What did you do this weekend, Rob? So we're on the same shift, same house.
We're pretty much together all the time. So that was Saturday as our normal shift. And then Sunday took my wife to Dayton, Ohio to the Dayton International Airport for the air show Oh, yeah, nice. that they have. Yeah.
For our 28th anniversary. Goodness. Congratulations. Amazing. Good job.
Christopher. Scream at us. What did you do? I worked some Trees events on Thursday and Friday. One in Broadripple and one at World Famous Hot Boys in Carmel, which you should check out.
They have excellent World Famous Hot Boys, is that like a Chippendales show? Sounds a little sketchy. Magic Mike? It's a chicken sandwich restaurant. Oh, it's a what?
Chicken sandwiches. Oh, it's the hot chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hot chicken place. Yeah, they have live music, too.
Yeah, they do. I just added them to our calendar. Oh, nice. Newest venue. That's Hot Boys, World Famous Hot Boys in Carmel.
And there's one in Fountain Square, which is We tried to go there after Fousheé's show. Sounds like Scott and I are going there after. He really likes hot chicken. Probably going there for lunch then, I guess. Yeah, we know it's good.
Buffalo chicken. Yeah, ate some for dinner last night. Nice. All right, I'll have to go check that out. Where's it at?
106th and Michigan. 106th and Ah, it's pretty far. Better be good. It's hot from what I know. It's world famous.
World famous. Hot Boys. Mhm. I don't love that name. It's with a Z.
I can't Oh, they add the Z. Okay, like Boys in the Hood. Oh, it makes it dangerous. Okay. What about Hot Boys in the Hood?
Is that a thing? Let's get John Singleton on the phone and see if he can do a sequel. Yeah. Uh let's see what I did this weekend. I worked Friday, Saturday at Beer pouring beer.
Um Friday we had Who was Friday? Shoot. Saturday was Rhino Down. And Also, I can't remember who Friday was. Is that Rhino Down or Ryan O'Dowd?
Rhino Down, yeah. Not the Irish guy. Yeah. He only does traditional Irish music, Ryan O'Dowd. Yeah.
Big fan. He's great, though. Yeah. I love his accent. It's quite lovely.
Oh, it's greening. Hahaha. You went Scottish there. I know, they're tricky. Yeah, I used to when I taught English, I would sometimes speak in accents like that.
And here's the secret. I told my students says the secret to an Irish accent. Is it just hard to make everything sound like a question? Oh, that's good. You just have to go up at the end.
You know what? You know, I I've spent a week in Ireland and I noticed and this is embarrassing, but I noticed like the more I would drink, I would adopt an Irish accent there. And it was I would I could hear myself doing it and I would try to stop it, but I couldn't. You get too much Guinness in you. Oh.
You go down have a few pints at the pub with the lads. Yeah. Got to watch myself. Um yeah, so Friday was that Gosh, who was Chris, are you looking that up? Yeah.
Who was there Friday? A E L A Oh, Ayla. Yeah, Ayla band. Yeah. Uh she was a great singer.
Powerful voice. And then write her down. Um good cover band, yeah. Yeah. Cover bands.
It's good. Um other than that, didn't really do a whole lot. Yeah, it's pretty pretty chill. Sound effect. Come on, Chris.
There we go. Yeah. All right. Uh let's get back to you guys. What is Brotherhood Designs?
Say I'm going to try that again. Let me get my NPR voice. So guys, what is Brotherhood Designs? Brotherhood is, you know, Scott and I we started an LLC 2022 and we had a great idea of making flags out of retired fire hose. It was just a real quick like easy thing for us to do on the side.
Um, a way for us to keep it out of the landfill. Yeah, I mean, it became a mission at that point keeping hose out of the landfill cuz we had the opportunities to. We had a lot of connections throughout the state getting hose. That was one of our first, like, as an LLC, you're like thinking, how can you scale, you know, all those little things that, you know, you're hearing from some of your mentors and people that we were paying attention to and we did the LLC for 3 years, um, and we did a pretty good job of making connections and keeping hose out of the landfill and cuz that's typically what we do, uh, in our in the fire services. Hose'll get tested out or burn up in a fire or whatever it is.
And then it gets thrown away. Um, a lot of times they'll keep it in a storage facility or something like that and then it ends up being thrown away at at some point just cuz it's in the way. So, we did that for 3 years and we decided that we had much bigger mission, uh, to essentially uh, we tell stories with our artwork. Um, it's typically the hose that we use is that retired hose that's got some burns or marks and scars. And we'll take that, we'll make a story out of it, a memo- a memorial piece, something like that that would be for somebody that um, has either passed on or, uh, you know, in a line of duty death or, uh, things like that.
And we decided that the stories being told were more, um, received and more it meant more to us as a as a company, as a as, you know, firefighters are close to retirement. We've got a couple more years and then and then I'll be there, but the mission was was more important than just making money. The LLC, you know, so we changed over to the nonprofit what, a year Technically December 24th, but started operating as a 501c3 nonprofit in January of 2025. Yeah. So, for us, we've never known what we've been doing business-wise.
Let alone now we're doing it. at in things and solve the problems on our full-time career job and So, the uh non-profit world it it's great, but it's challenging. It's Yeah. completely different for us cuz we're not used to asking for help and asking for this and asking for that. We're not used to just doing.
Yeah. Uh so, that's probably been the the biggest Yeah. one of the biggest obstacles for us, I guess. But in a nutshell, Brotherhood our mission now has become to help families of the fallen Uh and critically critically injured. We will you know, percentage of the sales of the flags, the unicorn of our product is is that we have a pro you know, we have a a mission that is ba- based on or backed with a product.
And that product is something that's very unique and and it tells a great story. So, we're found all over the United States. Um where we really got our big push was in Nashville cuz we like live music. Uh we like to to wind down in Nashville. And it's it's probably Do that on Wednesdays?
I hear that's probably Yeah, yeah, yeah. We try to go as much as we can. Yeah, yeah. But Nashville on Broadway, we have a lot of I would say a lot of friends that have become good buddies. Just you know, we'll go and listen to them and support them and uh on the strip that have helped us to get to different bars and things like that.
We have six major bars on Broadway. Um If I ask you to name them right now, can you name them? Oh, absolutely. Tootsie's was the first one. And that was that was the original.
That was the Well before we were business. Yeah, it was It was like, hey, you know, the first one here was at Ale Emporium in Fishers. Mhm. So, public First public was at a firehouse. Yep.
So, technically flag number two is at Ale Emporium when they did the remodel. So, can So, can I ask how what how big are these flags? Just to give you know, the listeners four different sizes. So, we have our squad series, which is about 23 by 44. So, smaller, little bit smaller than 2 by 4.
Okay. And then our engine series is approximately 43 by 80. A little bit smaller than a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood. bread and butter. Yeah.
It's what we find most of most of the time. Yeah. And then we've got our ladder series is around 55 by 110 in. So, it's much bigger. That's made out of 2 and 1/2 in fire hose.
And then our tiller series is the big boy. It's made out of 3-in hose, and that's about 6 ft by 11 and 1/2 ft. Wow. Goodness. Yeah.
It's a monster. How do you So, do you put them together and then transport something that large? Wow. Well, Yeah. we Like you said before, we get stuff done.
Like we're figuring a lot of this stuff out as it as it's going. You know, we've we've discouraged We had a shipment that we needed to do to Ohio. And he was like he was like, "You guys can ship it to us, right?" And we're like, "Sure, but we'd rather bring it to you." It was the big one. But we had a trip to DC. That was our second trip to DC that we were taking.
There's two Congress representatives over in in Capitol Hill that have our have our flags. And we were taking the second one over there, and we're like, "Hey, let's conveniently take it to him cuz we needed to take the trailer anyway." So, um yeah. We we just figured it out. And for the most part, we ship the engine series pretty much all over the country. So, and the squad.
So, Yeah, I've seen a few pictures of them. They're really cool. Yeah. person I'm into the in the video, but Yeah. Back to the origin?
Yeah. So, just for the audio listener, the flags themselves are if you can imagine the red and white stripes of the flag, those are hoses. Yeah. And then the stars on the blue section Is the blue section also All hose. Everything's fire hose.
And then you cut the stars out of the hose. Yeah. We cut We do cut. Yeah, the first The first six, yeah. The first six of them were, me taking a box knife.
Scott thought I was crazy. Taking a box knife and cutting it basically out, all 50. That would take forever. Yeah, that's why I thought he was crazy. Yeah, and then taking a torch and making sure that it all the edges were sealed off.
Yeah, cuz the fire hose is base we use the outer jacket of the fire hose, so it's a cotton jacket. Okay. So, as you cut it, it tends to fray and everything. So, then we were holding them with pliers, hitting it with a blowtorch to seal the edges. My goodness.
It was tedious. Yeah, we've upgraded. And we and we look at the the OGs and go, man, that looks crappy. That looks Yeah, now we got a laser machine that, you know, computer program, boom. Start.
curious how it's still all handmade, I mean. Yeah, oh yeah. I was in the shop, whenever that was, a couple weeks ago, and like, I mean, it's just some dude in there like stretching hose out over plywood, like I mean, it's handmade, handmade. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Those OGs that were pretty cool. Like, to look at them and go, you know, at Aulani and our firehouse and Tootsie's. Yeah, so let's go back to Nashville. Yeah, Tootsie's.
What else you got? So, Tootsie's was the first that was just on that whim. That was asking, that was on a hungover morning. Essentially, just getting ready ready for the day. That was me looking around Tootsie's.
Man, it'd be cool. Go back to Tootsie's to pick up your credit card that you forgot there the night before. We had only done Yeah. We'd only done two flags at that point. Not a business, just Robin Scott and just kind of screwing around and kind of looked around Tootsie's about 10:30 in the morning.
Little red bull vodka and you're trying to wake back up and get going again, and it's like, man, it'd be cool to have a flag in here. Like, millions people come in here. Yeah, most famous honky tonk. Yeah. Where is it in Tootsie's?
Third floor. Third floor. I looked at Sam. I looked at Robin, I was like, let's go see if there's a manager here. And he walked up.
Lady behind the bar happened to be a bar manager. And not only that, but her husband retired, pensioned off from FDNY from 9/11 complications. So, we showed her the picture of the firehouse and Neil's flag and she's like, "That's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I want to buy one for my husband for Christmas." This was in November Yeah. of '21.
Early November. Yeah. And she's like, "Do you sell them?" We were like, uh "Yes. Sure." So, worked all that with her, you know, out with her and she's like, "Can you have it back down here by Christmas?" In a month. Yeah.
And then she's like, "We want to Tootsie's wants one and I want one for my husband." So, You started cutting out stars, right? Back home we went. We produced two flags and two flags real quick and we were back down what, a week before Christmas? It was a week, yeah. I think 19th I think is when we dropped them off.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh yeah. Tootsie's was on that same trip when we delivered, we were going to one of our other favorite spots, Lucky Bastard, and uh Lucky Bastard Saloon, and seeing one of our favorite artist down there, Donnie Lee. Um He uh good friend of ours and and his wife, Shauna, going around with a tip bucket.
We had already been bantering with him. Um Scott's good at yelling at at people and We didn't know him at the time. We just seen him perform a few times. Yeah, a few. Like, yeah.
Now, they're really good friends. Like, they're kind of the reason we started the LLC. They They got us going. Because she she said something to to Donnie this cuz she said, "What are you guys doing in here?" And uh we showed him a showed her a picture after we had thrown a bunch of money in the in the bucket, which we usually do. And that half is a marketing expense.
Uh any any more? Um but yeah, she she went up and showed him up on stage and they ended up partying with us all night. Like, it was you know, she's like, "I'll get you guys into into Lucky Bastard." And then she as the conversations went on later that night, it was "Hey, I have a good friend, Kim, who is the manager of uh John Rich's place, Redneck Riviera. So, that was a continuing story of hey, I know this person or whatever. So, she was amazing in those first couple of them.
Frank uh Facili Facili Facili is the manager was the manager of Lucky Bastard then became a good friend. So, we went from John Rich was I think it was February 9th or something we took John's down there. Uh after Lucky Bastard um which is a whole cool we got to hand deliver it to John. that's why we started the LLC. It was because John was asking us to hand the hand the flag over to him on on February 9th or something like that.
And I think we started the LLC about a month before a week before. That's what it was. Yeah, so um Well, then Frank went from the GM of Lucky Bastard. They opened a sister bar, Whiskey River Saloon. He moved over there, opened that up.
Wanted a flag, so he bought our ladder in series of which is 55 by 110. Great location. Um you go in in the bar, turn to the right and go down like the bars are really neat if you've not seen Whiskey. Very very cool place. Um but it's right there on the wall like as you're going in between one of the bars to the rear of the building where they've got what a It's a really cool like whiskey bourbon drinking tasting wall.
Um but then they've got like pong pong tables in the back also that you can play or whatever, you know, and just sit and chill. It's a really cool bar, but our flag is right there on the wall where everybody can see it. From Whiskey uh Frank ended up going to JBJ's, Jon Bon Jovi's, and uh got us with the interior designer there. And so, Frank's really gotten us in a couple places and uh good dude, good family man, but works his ass off. He he got us in there.
The interior designer, we are on the feature wall at JBJ's. Um and and essentially it's been there since opening. Um so if you look on the main floor, look at the feature wall past the past where everybody sings on the stage, it's if you've not been in there, it's multiple floors, three floors of open wall overlooking the stage. And overlooking that stage and it's up on that on the second floor. So if you went to the second floor, you're right by it.
Very cool. And it's a really good location. Um and then from there uh got John Rich's people got us in touch with Alan Jackson's people. Melissa from Alan Jackson's so Just like making the rounds on the celebrity Alan Jackson's bar is our sixth one that we have down there. That's got to be cool going in and seeing your artwork in like these places that millions of people go in and out of every year.
Yeah, it is. It is. We We started uh we're you know, two firemen trying to get things done, right? And the big thing is is there's a lot more market to tap into there and we're being here, we're trying to make sure that you know, distribution, all the things that go along are are getting taken care of and we've got one employee. Well, I'd say two.
My wife does our our merchandise and and stuff and shirts and things and uh she is uh takes care of the shirts for Nashville. #nashvilleflagcrawl. If you go through all those six bars, we've tried to set up something where it's kind of a cool patriotic movement. You can take a picture with the flag. Basically put post it on social media, tag the bar, tag us, do all six and we'll send you a free t-shirt.
How's Grady doing? They say nothing in life is free. I love the intersection of of what you guys are doing and how you've harnessed and and leveraged the music scene to kind of get, you know, it it just seems like a natural fit down there for you guys and it's it's worked out well, sounds like. Yeah, Nashville's a good great place for us just to unwind. We've made it into a business place, so it's like it's kind of like sometimes you go down and we got to got to make some connections or whatever, you know, but we're having fun while we're doing it, so.
We've been working on Jelly Roll's bar and Luke Combs' bar down there, so if you guys could use your connections and make a call. Yeah. Let's get those going. Let's get them on the pod and and ask them. Yeah, get Jelly out here.
Yeah. Um I just had a thought. Oh, what's-his-face is opening up a place here in Indy, Red uh Oh, Red Blake Shelton. Oh, Red, yeah, Blake Shelton. Have you talked to them at all?
Opry Entertainment is a difficult animal to get a Yeah, we we've been working on it, but, you know, we're probably in a file stuck someplace, email file or something. Well, until this podcast comes out, that should loosen the grease the wheels. There you go. Chris, will you get John Opry on the line for me, please? I think that's his name.
He owes me a favor. John Opry. Yeah, John Opry. John Opry, okay. Is that his real name?
I have no idea. That is a good one. Seems very unlikely. Well, that's cool. Um yeah.
Well, let's talk about that because it's a natural segue into what you're doing at Federal Hill. I'm going to show this. We'll throw this on the I don't know on the screen in post, but uh Heroes and Healing Music Festival, July 17th, 16th. 16th. July 16th from 4:00 to 11:00 at Federal Hill here in Noblesville.
Tell me what's going on. Uh like you said. know what's going on? No, we don't. This was his grand idea and I've jumped on board and and we're going with it.
So, I'm going to let him explain it. There's a couple of reasons why it's the 16th. There's a couple of reasons why we've, you know, we've wanted to include music and whatever, you know. Uh we've been told by our mentors, you need to do something uh a larger event, right? So, we are trying to listen to those people that have been there done that and nonprofits and business and and you know.
So, we're doing it and of course we jump in feet first and we try and do something big. We don't back down from from whatever it is and it's scary as hell, but the the July 16th is you know, four bands, right? We wanted to do kind of like a festival atmosphere. The four bands, we wanted to include local and we wanted to include our friends who have been asking, right? The guys down in Nashville have been asking.
Mike specifically was like, "When are you guys doing it? When are you guys having your thing? When are you guys doing it?" Like for a year. Like, Mike, buddy, we don't have money, right? We're just getting our sponsorships and things like that as a nonprofit and you know, and Scott and Rob don't have that money, right?
So, we're trying to So, essentially you know, two Nashville artists. Gary Burke has been in Nashville quite a bit and he's out in Pennsylvania. So, those two artists that are uh Nashville oriented. artists. Who we got?
Yeah, so Billy and the Tall Boys, that was one of the locals. And you know, They're opening act. They're the opening and Dalton is just they're honored to be a part of it, you know, and they have their Who's Dalton? Dalton Stacy. He's the lead singer.
Yes, well. Mainly his daughter is Billy. Right. Yeah. And the whole name was kind of a joke cuz he's the only tall one.
He's like you know, 13 ft tall. Yeah. And the rest of his band pretty you know, average size. So, it kind of started out as a joke, Billy and the Tall Boys and everybody liked it and just kind of stuck from what they said. And they have that I don't want to say kind of Americana outlaw country, you know, and that for us is is great because you know, it kind of sets the mood the the scene, you know, for you know, what what America's about, you know, a little bit of grit, a little bit of, you know, and then um we've got Mike coming in and and Mike Riley and the Show Ponies.
So, they're out of uh Nashville. Um play a lot at uh Category 10. Uh so, Luke Combs. And then at uh Nudie's. Uh where else does he play?
A little bit of Excuse me. It's not what you think. It's not like hot boys, either. Weeze. So, uh yeah, Mike Mike plays around down there and we usually go out with him after sets and things and and have a good time.
Uh Ashley will be at the event, his wife, and uh She hates crazy boys. She has not been I mean, she's you know, she's been very tolerant of Scott and Rob when we go down and party with Mike. We got Mike in trouble a couple times, actually. Uh but Gary Gary is unbelievable. Gary Burke Gary Burke the III.
He is an unbelievable guy. Um the connection that we have with with them is is uh I'll try and keep it short for that. Um Helen Comparatore is the widow of Corey Comparatore, who was shot and killed behind President Trump at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. We have befriended Helen and she now is a one of our ambassadors to to tell the story of of service and legacy and things like that that kind of come along with our artwork. Um she connected with them was Corey was a 34-year Yes.
volunteer firefighter out there in Sarver, Pennsylvania with the Buffalo Township Fire Company. And he was also a 10-year vet, I believe. in the military. So, with what happened with us just starting the nonprofit, we thought here's kind of a a good way that we could give back and his department and Helen, his widow, when we contacted them through social media, it's the only way we had, they actually listened to us and kind of appreciated we were doing. We we basically were trying to connect with them and get fire hose from Corey's department and make a legacy memorial flag for Corey.
Which then turned into a series of 10 flags that we're doing, limited series of 10 with hose from his department and and all that. So, honoring Corey and then the money raised from those uh January this year we sold a couple flags out in Idaho very close to here. Yeah. But we were doing 9/11 event with our friends out there another nonprofit called Heroes Defense and we took two of these flags out there and auctioned them off at the 9/11 event where we actually had Helen come out or Heroes Defense had Helen come out and she was one of the guest speakers. What Heroes Defense does at their 9/11 gala their events is they bring retirees and survivors that worked on the pile Mhm.
like from FDNY at 9/11 and they come out and kind of tell their story and Heroes Defense kind of split it up a little bit and gave Helen and Kaylee, their youngest daughter, probably 20 minutes of of talking and telling their story. Yeah, 20 30 minutes. There wasn't a dry eye. I mean, Yeah, but we were able to sell two of the flags out there which all of our comparator series flags, we also put a metal memorial tin on there. It's uh Corey's department's helmet shield on his fire helmet.
Wow. Buffalo Township and then Helen signed them and President Trump has signed them. Wow. So, all 10 flags have a sitting president signature on them which is kind of cool. Yeah, that's cool.
Um but we auctioned those off and then those two that we auctioned off paid for a training weekend that Rob and I and a couple of our friends that have a training company here we went out to Corey's department and um bought a couple training props and went out there and trained his department and the county departments that came uh a full weekend of training that they don't get with volunteer, very rural, so um couple force pole entry entry props, a window prop, like teaching them how to get if any of their guys go down, how to get them out of a house, out of a window efficiently. Yeah. Um So, we're doing that and then any of the other flags that we auction off and sell, it's we're creating a memorial fund or a scholarship fund, I guess, for people who want to be first responders out in Butler County, Pennsylvania. That's pretty amazing what all how far and in the different ways you're using this product to to help people in your kind of, you know, community and other communities. Yeah.
Impressive. said, we don't back down from challenges. We're trying to shoot for the moon and um for the story aspect, Helen will be speaking at the event. We have multiple speakers. Helen is going to be one of those as our ambassador to talk about Corey's life of service and essentially what she's doing now after that tragic event happened.
So, for Helen, we've asked her, you know, Corey was a was a leader, you know, an ambassador of service, right? and she is she is going to talk about like those steps after. And that's what our goal is is in this event, Heroes in Healing, it has more to do with um you know, in the speaking, we wanted to keep it like 5 to 8 minutes around in there in between the acts. Kind of during the set changes. During the set changes, things like that.
We wanted to be purposeful and uh to talk about basically what what we're you're doing as individuals after that tragedy happens. So, service to others after the tragic thing happens. So, that's the big theme behind the whole night. And where Gary fits in is Gary Burke III lives out in Butler, Pennsylvania or near Butler, um 15 minutes away from Sarver where Corey where Corey served. He contacted the family, wanted to write a song about Corey.
So, he has Corey's song Until We Meet Again. Um and then from doing that and then doing concerts, he met Kaylee. 10 10 uh uh concerts out out in, you know, Midwest or Yeah. East Coast Pennsylvania, Ohio, Jersey. Yeah.
Uh But yeah, he did a 10 concert series last year and every city he went to, the money he made from the concerts he donated all of it back to a local volunteer fire department. great idea. Yeah. So, in the process of doing all that and writing Corey's song, he met Kaylee. This is the one Which is Yeah, their youngest daughter.
She was 24 at the time, I believe. I think so. And they are now engaged. You're kidding me. So, that's kind of So, that's kind of cool, but when we went out, I mean, we'd met Gary before at the memorial last year, the the one-year anniversary when we were out there.
Um, and then when we did the training, Gary actually came in and after we were done training, I think Saturday night when we were out there in January, he came in, did a concert, like didn't charge us, just came in, just to entertain all the first responders and everything. Yeah, that's cool. we started talking to him about doing this event and he was like, "I'm in." Yep. Yeah. And uh that rounds out the three three bands.
Headliner Headliner is Clayton Anderson. Clayton Which is that other local. We wanted a couple local, a couple of, you know, Nashville-esque. And you were telling me he has a bar, too. Yeah.
Clayton's Country Bar. Do you have a flag there? Not yet. Come on, Clayton. That's right.
It's okay. So, uh give me the details. Where can we get tickets? Um cuz it is a ticketed event. So, this is important because a lot of the concerts at Federal Hill are typically free community concerts.
This will be kind of sectioned off, Mhm. um gated off, and requires a tickets because you guys are trying to raise money to help fund the various projects that you're doing. Right. So, yes, it's a ticketed event, but the money's going to towards a great cause, so where do we get tickets? How much are tickets?
What do we need to know there? Yeah, tickets start at $25. Kids 10 and under are free with the purchase of an adult ticket. But yeah, general general attendance lawn, you know, you can bring your chair, bring your blanket. You can sit on the ground, stand, whatever you want to do.
$25 and we got some VIP sections are 75 and then we have VIP tables. And those are they seat eight, $100 a seat at the VIP tables. With those you kind of get a VIP experience, meet and greet with the artists. Um we have VIP bar which Beer Brewery Hey. is our beer vendor for the event.
And Serendipity food truck, they're going to be there and and have a special Serendipity, they they work out of the Moose Lodge where we like to play bingo. Bingo. Bingo. They will be there upgrading that experience for them as well. Five food trucks, Serendipity, Bearded Burger, it's those egg rolls.
Yes. Indy Street Food. I think so. Getting hot boys or Lucky's. No, not hot boys or not.
Not hot boys. I mean Robin and I'll be there, but yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's a great event. We've we'll put more information.
It'll be on the calendar if it's not already on the calendar for Hamco. And Blue Smoke Blue Smoke BBQ here. Oh, I've been wanting to try that. Yeah. Yep.
We'll be over at their place. Um yeah, so that's four bands. It starts at 4:00 p.m. goes to 11:00. Mhm.
Um and you can get tickets brotherhooddesigns.org. Yep. That the best place to go? brotherhooddesigns.org and we'll put a link. Remind me to put the link in the show notes.
We'll put it on the screen right here. Any link that's there, there's also messages from the artists and stuff on the on a Spokenote QR code. Uh the artists on the posters that we have, anything there's messages from those artists and Yes, if you see a poster out in the wild, scan that spoken note. I forgot spoken note. That's great.
Let's do Hamco live top five? Hit it, Chris. Hamco live top five. Hamco live top five. Hamco live top five.
It's the Hamco live top five in honor of your guys' event coming up. You didn't hear the music. It's great song. it here it. Oh, okay.
We're deaf and have our headphones too loud. You got a great country music lineup. We decided let's go with top five So, I looked at it in two ways because I don't know that you guys are musicians. You guys play? Not at all.
Okay. Just music fans. All right, so my thought was what are the top five country songs that you would want to play if you were in a cover band or you would want to hear if you went and saw a band at Tootsie's, let's say. Got it. So, that was the top five.
As always, come up with two. So, now we're going to have what? 10. We're going to get rid of five. Yeah.
We got our work cut out for us. But you guys said you don't back down. So, I feel like our choices are going to get lost. All right, Tyler, why don't you start us off? well, I remember hearing this cover in Tootsie's probably about 15 years ago when I was there.
And confession, I've never been to Tootsie's. Woop. I have had a Tootsie Roll. Is that I've also done that dance. Let me see that Tootsie Roll.
Can we see that It's a lot. Thank you. A lot different. Okay. My choice is Amarillo by Morning.
Amarillo by Morning. a George Strait song. Yeah. Okay. That's good.
We've we've covered that at least once cuz I was on a Did I? I did. I think I sang it. But, I think you played on it. I don't remember.
Was that Was that Primeval? Yeah, I mean they got a standing ovation. Well, they normally do. I think they actually just get up to get a drink, but They all flooded into the restroom. I count that as a standing ovation.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Amarillo by Morning, that's a great one. Great little violin. It's a fiddle, you dummy. That's what they call it in country.
They look similar, it's fine. Oh, man. Anyhow. All right, Christopher, you got one for us? Shout it out loud.
That's a kiss off. She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy by Kenny Chesney. Okay. Chris just said she thinks my tractor's sexy and I have to imagine Chris has never even heard that song. I hear blazing out of his backyard every time I go outside.
Or been on a tractor. Oh, goodness. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that one. I don't think I even know who is that.
Kenny Chesney. Oh, Kenny Chesney. I saw Kenny Chesney. My first concert I ever saw was Ronnie Milsap. Great.
And my second concert was Alabama and Kenny Chesney opened. Oh, wow. Yeah. What's your choice? I'm going to go with uh Neon Moon by Brooks and Dunn.
I was going to say that one. I knew you were going to pick it. Uh, and I will say this, too. I like Kacey Musgraves' version better, but No, I don't. You don't?
Mhm. It's too too poppy. Just like the original, man. Okay. All right, Neon Moon.
And we've done that. We've done that a lot. Yeah. Remember when our one bass player didn't want to Sometimes I got to change the key of a song so that I can sing it without you know. Yeah.
Hurting himself. Stressing himself. Yeah. So, the original song Neon Moon is in the key of A, which I can sing, but it's like it's up there for me. So, I said, "Can we just do it in G?" And we had this bass player that It was like I asked him to I don't know.
Rearrange Mozart's uh symphony or something. I was like, "Dude, you just go down a step." Anyways, musician guys will get that. Uh they'll appreciate that. Neon Moon. Uh Rob, you got one for us?
I'm going to say You said don't steal yours. I'm like, "We've got a list. We did a list." first one. Country Roads. Country Roads?
Yeah. Yeah. That's not the first one, but that's okay. I left the other one. So, here's the thing.
Is Yes or no. Is John Denver a country singer? Now he would be. Yeah. Then I don't think he was, but now he would be.
Pop. He was more pop back then, right? Pop folky pop. Folky pop, yeah. But that I mean I'd say that's definitely a country and song.
And then uh he's got that other one. Country Boy? What's that one? I don't know. Thank God I'm a Country Boy.
Oh, yeah. Thank God I'm a Country Boy. There you go. There's the answer. All right.
So, yes. I mean so, he called himself one. Uh how's he doing? Moving on. Great singer-songwriter though.
Not much of a pilot. Um Oh, boy. Scott No, I'm just He's not wrong. I mean I'd like to have formally apologize to the estate of John Denver. John Deutschendorf.
That's his real name. Really? Yeah. John don't know if that's real or but you said it with confidence so. It's real.
I'm going to go with Toby Keith courtesy the red, white, and blue. Yeah. Courtesy red, white, and blue. I'm going to write that down just in case R RWB There we go. All right.
Tyler brings it back to you. All right, we'll go a little more current. We'll do Springsteen by Eric Church. Oh, that's a great one. Yeah.
First of all because it's about my guy Springsteen. I want to go back to Toby Keith real quick. I don't I'm not super familiar with his stuff. The one song I do know is uh I'll never smoke weed with Willie again. Yeah, I remember that.
So funny. Uh Springsteen, Eric Church Mhm. He just gave a big speech at uh North Carolina's graduation. It was nice. I'm going to write a book about that speech.
I'm going to write a book based on the speech, not about the speech. That wouldn't be a good book. Christopher Uh I picked one bourbon, one scotch, one beer. George Thorogood famous country famous country music superstar George Thorogood Let's go ahead and cross that one off. It's not even country.
That's blues. It's pretty close. Well, it is close. I'll give you that blues and country they share a lot of commonality. Yeah, they use the same some of the same notes.
Detroit, Michigan's George Thorogood Some of that Motown country. Oh goodness. Mhm. All right. I'm going to throw Well, this seems too obvious, but I I think I got to do it.
you're going to say it. What am I going to say? Um Friends in Low I'm going to say Friends in Low Places. Yeah. Yeah.
I know like I just I'm worried that no one will say it because it's too obvious. Yep. But it absolutely destroys every time we played that. It does. Like it's just Does it destroy it or it destroys it?
Both. Both. Yeah. Fair. Usually it comes out a little late in the night when we're a little looser.
Yeah. But uh yeah, that's one that you get the crowd to sing along. Really easy. All right. Hey, that's a bar, too, right?
Like Friends in Low Places. Didn't Garth have a bar down in Nashville? What do we got to do to get you guys in there? We'll just give him a call. Get him on the line, Chris.
There you go. Chris, get Garth on the line. Line two, please. All right. Rob, what you got?
Copperhead Road. Ooh. Steve Earle. Love that. That would be one like I wouldn't be expecting, but I would love.
I'd be surprised. Yeah, and I would probably get real excited about that. I went to You're talking about Ireland. I went to a uh a musical pub crawl when I went to Ireland, and it was in the Temple Bar area. So, you meet at the Temple Bar, and your guides for the bar crawl are two local musicians.
So, you get I think you get a ticket at each bar you went to, and then that you could turn in for a beer, and then if you want some more, you get more. But the guys would do like two or three songs and talk about Irish music and sort of the history of Irish music. And um then at one point they let people do a song or a poem or a joke or whatever. And this one guy did Copperhead Road. It's great.
I thought you were going to say Galway Girl. No. No. No, that would have made sense. I know, it would have.
But Copperhead Road still has that kind of Irish Yeah. Yeah. I heard Galway Girl played in Galway on New Year's Eve. It was quite the moment. Mhm.
Not the Ed Sheeran one, you know, the old Galway Girl. But Steve Earle did a great version of. Yes. That's the one I'm familiar with. All right.
Uh Copperhead Road, great one. Chicken Fried, Zac Brown. Oof. Surprised you didn't say that one, Season. I know, I thought about it.
I'm glad it got on there. It's played a lot down in Nashville. Mhm. But That's a great song we played. We killed with that one at the Federal Hill, actually.
We had a fiddle player. Mhm. Mhm. All right. Okay, here's So here's our list.
We've got Amarillo by Morning. She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy. Neon Moon. Country Roads. Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.
Springsteen. One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer. One less song on the list. Uh Friends in Low Places. Copperhead Road.
And Chicken Fried. Okay, we got to get these nine songs down to five. Let's go for the ones first that are like got to be on there. Well, Chicken Fried, I think, is a no-brainer. Okay.
And I think Amarillo by Morning. But I could be wrong. Definitely Neon Moon. Yeah. Okay.
Any disagreements? I think uh um Friends in Low Places has to be on there. Oh, definitely. So we got to pick two more. This is a This is hard.
I'm going to push back on Amarillo for now. Okay. I'm not sure. Can I add one? Can I add one?
Can I throw a curveball? Okay. How about Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy? I'll put it on there. You're You're This is just making it harder.
Well, I'm just saying that's I think that's better than some of the other ones. I'm going to go with what we do as Brotherhood, patriotic artwork out of retired fire hose. I'm going to I'm going to say Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue Okay. All right. Let's get rid of some.
We can get rid of Not the bourbon. Uh I could take Springsteen off there. I would just like to hear it. It is a great song. Mhm.
I agree. Oh. Tractor Sexy. Yeah, I got to get rid of She Thinks My Tractor Is Sexy. Sorry.
Sorry, Chris. It's nothing personal. Two weeks in a row. Pick better songs. He just Chat GPT'd, "What are some country songs?" Um I'm going to say Well, gosh, that's tough.
Country Roads to me isn't country. Enough. But Copperhead Road. Oh, man. Where we at?
Which ones we got? Okay. So far, Neon Moon is in, Friends in Low Places is in, Chicken Fried is in, Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, Uh boy, you got one left. Oh, man. I think you get I think Amarillo That's classic country.
Yeah, get it off. It's George. It's George. The king. The king.
I think George I think that's in. We see it a lot at Hank's and Tootsie's and and Robert's. They They play it a lot there, so I'd say yeah. Tootsie's is a music bar. Yeah.
Hey, what are What do you What do you guys do when The girls dance to music there, but that doesn't make it a music bar. Sure as hell does. Okay, the final count. Amarillo by morning, Neon Moon, Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, Friends in Low Places, and chicken fry. There's your Hamco live top five.
Hamco live top five. Hamco live top five. Hamco live top five. Hamco live top five. That's your Hamco live top five brought to you by Moonshot Games.
We want to thank them for letting us use this studio up here. Go to moonshotgamestore.com if you're in the need for some new games or trading card games or board games or any sort of games. And go check out their live stream on YouTube as well. Hey, that's right. Make sure you check out the calendar at hamcolive.com.
We'll have all the live music happening around including the Brotherhood Designs Heroes and Healing Music Festival there at Federal Hill. Of course, and make sure you're subscribed on YouTube and you're following us on all the social medias and that sort of thing. And subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. All right. Let's talk about cuz we were just mentioning something during the break.
This is kind of a week-long or weekend-long celebration that you get the Heroes and Healing Music Festival on Thursday, but something is happening Saturday, you were saying? Yeah, Saturday is the the Indy Steel Sled Hockey team is in the area and we have a coach that my boys have been around. He's a he's a hockey coach that I've known for a couple decades. He is one of the coaches that heads up all of the sled hockey camps in the in the area. Brings in 80 to 100 families.
Kids that have disabilities. hockey is, but for the listener that doesn't know what sled hockey know what it is. really know what it is. What is sled hockey? If you picture hockey not being able to use a a leg or um um you know, your legs at all, um they're a it's an adaptive sport and and they are strapped into a sled and they can uh then participate.
They use the sticks um as ice picks to be able to to propel themselves with their arms. There's two little sticks and then they end up it they flip it around and they actually use the the blade of it as now they're shooting or passing uh item. So That's cool. the sled it's adaptive sports. Um RHI uh Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana um is is part of that umbrella of uh adaptive sports.
Um so injuries uh within within the community will go to RHI. Well, this is the RHI sports wing and um you know, coach Dwayne Weber is putting on a police and fire grudge match that we're doing on Saturday night, the 18th. We're going to beat the crap out of the cops. Yeah, on sleds on the ice. Yes.
So the 18th is the legal So our our event, the um the music festival kicks off the weekend. We're having some of the adaptive athletes, the US Paralympic sled hockey champions, gold medal champions. They beat Canada as well. Yeah. a clean sweep of the Canadians.
You're seeing red, white, and blue. There you go. And we have a couple of them that will actually be speaking about that tragedy um and and you know, what happens after that to serve others and that's essentially what they did. They're veterans uh that have been uh service disabled and then they end up serving the country in another way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Our Go ahead. The fire department and the police departments are going to strap into some sleds and play some sled hockey. Yeah. Are you guys Are you guys participating? Are you in a sled?
I have signed up myself. I don't know if Scott has. Not signed up myself. There was a lot of talk over there. Oh, yeah.
I'm not being signed up. When I say we, like the fire department. All right. You're more like a coach. Yeah, I have bad shoulder.
I'm not getting out there and doing that. The Olympians are actually coaching. They're going to do a demonstration. Um the Have you been in a sled yet? No.
No. No, no, nobody has. That's what makes it kind of cool is nobody has an advantage. And Rob told coach Weber, he's like, you realize we're going to destroy these sleds, right? So, is it Is it the Fishers Police Department and then you guys?
It's not just Fishers. We're opening it up to pretty much Hamilton County. Hamilton, Marion, anybody that we can get, you know, to sign up. So, we just started actually opening up the sign-ups for for Fishers and and and Hamilton County will be next. Now, you guys know why we have firefighters, right?
So, police officers have someone to look up to. That's right. Yeah, so our Here's and Healing Music Festival's kicking off Thursday, kicking off that weekend for RHI's sled hockey camp, and then the grudge match Saturday night. Got it. That's Got it.
That's great. That'll be fun. I actually think it is. be at the Fuel Tank. It'll be at the Fuel Tank.
Is Did they get confirmed? Hill and Oaks, are they performing Saturday at the Fuel Tank? They are not confirmed. We are working on maybe a puck and party. Get Zach on the phone.
So. Get Zach on the We can get Zach on line three. He's been on the podcast. Yeah. So, we're running the Thursday event, and then coach Weber and RHI are they're doing all the Saturday stuff.
We're just We're trying to help them get the That's great. get the word out for that, so. I love that. Okay, and we'll put some information about that on socials. Then I can send you Yeah, send me the stats they're advertising them at the Perfect.
Um You don't know what sleds are. Yes. Yes. No. Is it one blade or is it like It depends on how good you are.
No, I think there's No, there's at least two, front and back. the blades, the better you are, the more the closer the blades become. So they're going to be far apart then. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um Okay, so you asked a question during the break that I'm interested in too.
Well, yeah, we were talk you were talking about moonshot games. And then I was wondering there's probably not as much downtime as people think, but what do you guys do at the firehouse to stay busy and entertain yourselves between fires and training and all the other stuff? Work out, training, cooking, cleaning, runs. Okay. We really like sleeping through the night.
It just doesn't happen very often. Nor did it last night. You said what happened last night? Uh pretty good pretty good fire yesterday afternoon after we had dive training for 2 hours. I think we were still cleaning up at Rob's like I said normally with us and he was at 91's yesterday, but uh we were in the middle of cleaning up from dive training cuz we're uh our house and our headquarters were the two kind of dive response.
So dive rescue. So the car goes into a retention pond and car, person, whatever it is, we're yeah. Yeah. Um so yeah, we're in the middle of cleaning that up when the fire came out down the street from our firehouse and then yeah. Two-story residence.
Fire fire out of the back got into the attic. Uh we were there for a few hours. Three and a half, I think. Yeah. How how often cuz you guys are going out on calls that could be uh like more like a paramedic type thing.
It's around 80% right, Scott? Or 70 or 80? we're probably 80% medical, vehicle accidents, fires. Ducks stuck in the drain. often is is there a fire fire that you're going out?
In our area it's not very much. Uh it's not more than 10%. I mean, let's put it this way. It's mostly alarms, right? We'll get a lot of smoke investigations or smell or whatever alarms going off that we have to take care of, but we're all mitigation, you know, we're all hazards basically that we take care of.
So, it could be a variety, a lot a lot of variety of stuff, so. But when there's a fire like yesterday, like that's got to be I don't know what the word is. Yeah, I want to know what that feels like. What is that, you know? It's fun for about 15 minutes.
Yeah. The cleanup is what takes the longest and yeah, like you said, 20 he's been on 27 years, I've been on 21. It's the cleanup is like what you look not don't look forward to it all. Yeah. Yeah, we all the all the fire hose came off of my engine yesterday, which means we had to go back and clean all the fire hose off our engine.
We had I think 13 sections of hose, 50-ft sections of hose that we had to clean and then reload and that was burned up, right? No. No, we didn't burn any up. So, here's what I'm thinking about because so when you're on your way there, are you thinking like I might get to save somebody's life today or what do you what's going through your head cuz that seems like one scary, but two like I could do something really important today. Mhm.
That I think that's on all of our minds. Like if you're in the business, you know, for the right reason, I think that we always want to be needed. Yeah. Um and I think when we go home, it's a change, right? Like you go home, it's like you know, there's a different need.
It's like I've saved somebody today, you know, yeah, exactly. So, for us I mean, I think for most of us don't want any glory or any like metal or anything that comes along with that. It's just it's just not what we do it for. Yeah. There's always an opportunity to do something for someone.
Um yeah, we're always there on somebody's worst day. It's the worst day. It's pretty much what it is. Yeah. And then I don't mean for glory.
I just mean like to do something so meaningful with your life. Like there's just an opportunity there when these tragedies happen. Yeah, I have felt very honored um for the 21 years to be able to one have the the uh tools and the and the opportunity to do that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, the living in a community in Hamilton County that that is gives me the proper tools necessary to do my job.
I'm grateful for. Um and then the community that wraps wraps around and says, "Hey, you know, we love what you're doing. We really appreciate who you are." And that was the the family yesterday at the fire. Like we felt like we were behind the whole time. Like cuz it was up in the attic, there was a lot of construction that allowed it or didn't allow us to see the fire like right away.
So we had to overcome that and it took a long time and we were chasing it a lot and the family said, "Thank you for what you do." And it's like well, we I mean the house was pretty much gone. Like you know, as for us it's it it's very difficult to hear that and then go "Well, we did what we're supposed to do, but you know, it wasn't saving your house. We saved some of burn it down. We saved the house, but there's so much water and water, smoke, fire damage from it. I don't know if that's a I don't know if that's a repair or tear down or rebuild.
That's But we we saved some art um that they had in there. Like put it under tarps and stuff. That's part of the job, you know, and and they were thanking us for doing that, you know. They saved their cars in the in the garage. were good in the garage, yeah.
Um it it's we try and help people on their worst day and sometimes that's successful in our minds and sometimes it's like we did our best. Yeah, you know, so. I think I think from the outside cuz our friend Brandon, he's been on the podcast before, he and I talk about this all the time. I Everybody I think on the outside wonders how they would handle situations like that. It's It's like Do you ever think about that or like if this Could I do that if this house were on fire or if this There was an overturned car here, how would I handle that situation?
Would I do what I hope I would do? Yeah. You know, would I be brave and you know, and handle the situation calmly or would I be freaking out, you know? And I'm sure a lot of it comes down to the training and and and all that, but Yeah. Yeah, I imagine the training just takes over at some point like you know, the lapse of whatever, you know, drills and stuff that you guys do.
Like I imagine that has to be I It's an interesting question and this will go back to another one of my jobs. And here we go. There's a long running theme of careers that I've held. Careers? Well, careers is a strong word.
You have to be there more than a year for it to be a career. Well, I didn't even get there. So, I I was when I was living in Las Vegas, I knew we were coming back to Indiana and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And so, I started going down the path of uh be coming a police officer for the Carmel Police Department. Sorry.
So, I went I went through the whole uh you know, the physical training and then you got to Not the physical training, the physical test and there's like a written test, physical test. Then you do the boards. Or board interview, I guess they call it. Yeah. And that's where I Failed?
Failed. They didn't like anything I had to say. Hey, you want to see a card trick? Was it You sure it was that or the psych the psych eval? Oh gosh, I don't know.
Maybe that was part of the psyche eval and I wasn't aware of it. Is that a similar process for you guys cuz I considered fire department, too, but I I don't know if I had age out. I'm definitely aged out now, but there's also like an EMT requirement to that to be on the fire department now. Some Most Most places when you get hired I mean we'll just speak for Fishers, but most places do this you whether you get hired or not you don't have to have any experience anymore. When I got hired in '99 in our class was the last one that had to be fire and EMT certified.
So, after our class maybe they were like these guys are terrible and we're going to just hire new people. I don't know, but now you go through a 26-week recruit class you get fire EMS hazmat like they put you through 26 weeks of hell basically. My son just got hired on our department, so Oh, nice. I've been on almost 27 and he's coming on fresh and I kept telling him like you're going to be the hardest 26 weeks of your life. And he got done I said, "Was it as hard as you expected from what I told you?" He's like, "No, it was much harder." Oh, wow.
And he's 24, so he's young. He's got all the energy in the world. We don't stand a chance, Cecil. Yeah, I got bad knees, bad hips. Yeah, but he had he had no experience.
He was on as like a cadet at a couple departments on the south side, but no certifications. Um he got all of the certifications through Fishers going through the 26 weeks of class. a similar recruitment process where you have to do like I had to do the physical and the written and Yes, written test, physical agility. Yeah, then you move on to interviews and psyche evals and you know, your physical your physical and everything. I do a ladder climb that put the ladder up and then make sure that you're you can overcome the height.
Climb up 105 ft about like that angle. Yep, I'm out. Actually That tells me how I'd handle that situation. There you go. Um in the interview thing that I did for the police department, I'm told, I don't know how true this is, but there there's three guys at a table and then you're sitting here and you do that twice.
All right, I did it twice, two different tables. And they have like a checklist of things they want to hear you say, like specific I don't know if it's specific line or specific words or a general idea that they are checking off. You have to get so many of those checked off in order to pass that interview. So, it's not like an it's not like an interview interview. It's it's almost a test, yeah.
Yeah, and I guess there was books and stuff that you can buy to help you prepare for those things I was not aware of. It's probably best I'm not a police officer though, to be honest. The career counselor said that I went to said, "Yeah, you should definitely not be a police officer. You would try to talk someone out of shooting you or something." You know. Yeah.
Yeah. Listen to me, what's the biggest fire you've ever been involved with? The one that we had where it was just completely glowing, like the whole thing. Um, Oh, it was like 12,000 square foot home. Yeah.
It was under construction, like nobody was there. It was literally just surround and drown it. Were you on the second floor or something? probably, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, uh, we had a big I mean, what was it? Apartments, I guess, but huge thing, 131st and Cumberland. 131st. And, uh, yeah, they were it was under construction as well. They were building it and we got there and it was through the roof.
We were there forever. fortunately, unfortunately, probably fortunately, was not on during that shift. Yeah, I came out early in the morning, but the oncoming shift at 7:00 a.m. They kind of brought them out to the scene and took us back about 7:30, 8:00 and they had to deal with all the cleanup. That was terrible.
that was terrible. Well, that was funny cuz, uh, we they took four forklifts and got the hose that was frozen big old piles and put it on the flatbeds and took it out to a station that had some room and and took the fallout and clean out. Yeah, it was a mess. I saw pictures. I'm like I'm glad I wasn't at that.
So I had a bit of emergency last night. I don't know if this is something you guys handle or not, but my dog got loose for about an hour. Should I have called you? I thought maybe we could raise the ladders and get a good view of the neighborhood. That's not okay.
You can call the police call the police let them fly their drones and and find the dog. They're going to tell you no also. In my old neighborhood a cat got in a tree and literally a fire engine came with a ladder to get a cat out of a tree. Oh, so you guys are good with cats but not dogs. Absolutely not.
They hate dogs. We always try to tell people have you ever seen a cat skeleton in the tree? No, because when they get hungry they will come down. We've had people call us for their bird flew out of the house and into a tree. And could we couldn't get the bird?
Sorry, we cannot do that. The serious part about that is that they really want us to take our truck out of service to do that when somebody's grandmother or family member might be having a medical emergency across the street. Like I mean let's think about that process. Like you're asking for this when we should be available for that. We want to help everybody but it is a 911 emergency service.
Absolutely. Okay. We have been getting called a lot for ducklings in a drain though. So we've kind of gone out stayed in service and help scoop the ducks out. So you help ducks.
Apparently. Who does the cooking at the firehouse? I love to cook personally. So like if I were a fire fighter I would always do the cooking. We had a great dinner planned last night until the fire ended.
We ended up we're having it uh when do we work in Friday for lunch? We ended up ordering pizza across the street cuz we were still cleaning up at 8:00 at night. Uh a little bit of everybody. Um when you first get on, uh he was saying that his son is uh I guess when you give them advice, the new ones, you kind of expect that they need to know or have several recipes that they need to be ready to make that like they kind of perfect that ahead of time. Okay.
Some people it's natural. For me, I don't care. Like I never have really cared. You're going to eat. It doesn't have to be this great meal.
And if you don't like it, guess what? You know. Too bad. What's the every time like not every time, but I'll go to like Kroger a lot and there'll be uh I guess this is a fire engine or a fire truck and like five guys get out and they do all the shopping. Is that Yeah.
what happens? Yeah, we have to go shopping. Like we pay for our own food and we figure out what we're going to have that day either as a group or we go to the store and see what's on sale, see what sounds good, whatever. And uh go grocery shopping for our meals for the day. like where the brotherhood part comes from, right?
We're a family. You guys are Yeah. And it's the ladder crew as much time around each other as you are your He and I it's constant. I mean, cuz of the nonprofit and Right. Yeah.
Yeah. A lot of times ladder crew cooks a terrible meal and we let them know and then we Go in there and fix dinner or whatever and we say we balance out the meals of good and bad for the day. This is how it's done. Yeah. Yeah, our house Yeah, our house we've got a ladder truck and a and a fire engine.
And so we split like someone will cook lunch and then the other truck cooks dinner and guess who's on the ladder. He's on the ladder. Yeah. Cuz they're terrible. I guess it's the guy that says he doesn't care.
Yeah. Uh okay, let's get into a trivia question. We got a trivia question courtesy of Rudy's Recycle Shop in Cicero, Indiana just off of State Road 19. If you need your bike tuned up, go see Joe Rudy at Rudy's Recycle Shop. Sponsor of the Ham Go Live trivia.
This is very loud. We should mention all the fine work that Chris is doing over there in Video Village, which is of course brought to you by LM Products. Uh fine leather Yeah. How's that for Walk ticket. lmproducts.com, makers of fine leather goods in Anderson, Indiana since 1975, makers of guitar straps, messenger bags, wallets, all sorts of good stuff.
Speaking of guitar straps and fire hose, how's it coming along? Uh I'm cooking up something pretty good. It's not ready yet. Okay. You guys will be first to see it.
Not you. That's fair. That's I think that's completely fair. All right, let's get into trivia. Here's today's trivia question topic is country music.
Country music. So, how it works here, gentlemen, is you place a bet between 1 and 30. Why 30? I don't know. Um based on your knowledge of country music, Oh boy.
whoever has the right answer and the most points bet wagered wins. If no one gets it right, whoever has the least amount of points wagered wins. That makes sense? Kind of Final Jeopardy? You guys ever watch Final Jeopardy at the the firehouse?
It's on sometimes, yeah. Yeah. Not Final Jeopardy, probably just Jeopardy. Just Jeopardy. Why would you just watch the last question?
That Wheel of That Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy is, you know, it's around the time after right after dinner and it's sometimes Yeah. Okay. All right, so uh I don't know. I feel like I know my country music. Did you pick this question or did Rudy actually send it in?
This is uh from my friend Kathy. Okay. Chatty Kathy, we call her. Chat GPT for All right, here's the question. This country artist was the first woman in history to sell more than 10 million copies of a single album, achieving that milestone with her 1997 release Come on Over.
Who is she? Let me read that again. Chris, can you hear that okay? Okay. Oh, your headphones are which don't have a microphone.
Uh this country artist was the first woman in history to sell more than 10 million copies of a single album, achieving that milestone with her 1997 release Come on Over. And that throws me off. That is Oh, shoot. What's her name? Oh, my god.
Uh I had her name and then I and then I lost it. Oh, there it is. Got it. It starts with an S. I can neither confirm nor deny.
All right, Chris, first should we go around the horn? Uh I bet three. Three points Seems aggressive. Based on your uh George Thorogood uh addition to the country music charts. And I guess Shania Twain.
Wow. Chris, coming in strong with Shania Twain at three points. Tyler? I had that written down until I thought 97 and that's not I don't think that's Is that I don't think she's 97. She is not 97 years old.
Is that what you think? No. I have no idea. Gretchen Wilson. Gretchen Wilson.
How many points? 14. Rob. I I'm not going to get that. It I've got like a five and I'm saying Dolly Parton cuz you said 10 million.
I'm like man, that's a lot. But I have no idea about the 97 or the female artist. No, I don't know. I had 25 points with Shania. I went with 20 points and also went with Shania Twain.
I feel like Come On Over. I'm pretty sure that was the song. Yeah, I thought so, too. Dang. Scratched it out.
just confirm. 100% could be wrong here. Could be. She points did you have? I had 20.
Oh. Yeah. So, you 25. You might win. I'm either a big winner or a big loser.
Answer, Shania Twain. Man, Come On Over became one of the best-selling albums of all time. High five. And remains the best-selling country album by a female artist. Songs from the album include You're Still the One, From This Moment On, and Man, I Feel Like a Woman.
Look at this. What what's scratched out right there? Uh Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton. He's pulling it.
Uh hey, here's another follow-up trivia question. All are welcome to play even though you got it wrong. Who produced Shania Twain's Come On Over album and also married Shania Twain? His name was Mutt. Mutt Lange?
Colby is guys on fire over here. I don't know his last name. Yeah, Mutt Lange. I'm terrible at trivia. Who also produced Def Leppard.
And AC/DC's Back in Black. Really? Yeah. How about that? And more fitting name could not be had for this gentleman.
If you've seen his face. Uh hey, that's uh trivia brought to you by Rudy's Recycle Shop. Hit me. Perfect. Hey, we should mention this very quickly.
We got some new merch. Hamco Chris, do you think you could get in here and show off your shirt without showing your face? It's very important that you not show your face. Remember, we'll we'll reveal producer Chris's face when we hit 1,000 subscribers. Now, turn around for the camera.
Bend down a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see what would be the face.
We'll reveal this face once we hit 1,000 subscribers, but we're going to reveal the shirt right now. We got some merch coming out. Thank you, Chris. That's good. Uh there's actually I think you can take it off now.
There you go. Not the shirt. You're No. Chris, put the shirt back on. Dear lord, that is a weird tattoo.
Uh Chris, there's a box in that chair right there. Will you throw in the two shirts in that box? I've got the hat. We've got the shirt. Yeah, let's do that.
Perfect. Just a couple more examples of merch. I had a really hard time deciding. I know. I feel like I got some good merch.
Yeah. There's this one. Kind of a vinyl record vibe to it. And this is Ginger's. My beautiful fiance, Ginger.
Hamco live tour. Midwest tour. Uh so, we'll have more details on the Hemco live store uh, coming up. I'm not quite ready to set it live just yet. I think probably next week we'll go live with it.
Um other than that, Christopher, what are you listening to? Uh, I was listening to the new Vince Staples album. The who? Vince Staples? You got it.
And the new Bobby Lees album. Oh, Bobby Lees, yeah, you talked about them before. So, Vince Staples and the Bobby Lees. Uh, that is not Bobby Lee, comedian Bobby Lee. No, that is a different Bobby Lee altogether.
Tyler, what are you listening to? Uh, found this guy on Instagram, Ian Keifer. Song is 15 different ways. It's fantastic. So, that's my music selection and podcast, Weird Americana.
Weird Oh, I like the sound of that. It is really good. Fun, just kind of random stories about stuff from the US. Hey, by the way, uh, you mentioned, I think it was two episodes ago, the Puerto Rico song. Yeah.
I since that episode, I can't not find it. It's like It's everywhere. It's everywhere I look. I can't get rid of this Puerto Rico song. I know.
And we're talking about maybe taking a trip to Puerto Rico. See, it's good for tourism. Yeah, good for them. Uh, Rob, what are you listening to? Uh, little bit of everything, but a good buddy of ours down in Nashville, Tyson Haynes, he's one to listen to.
So, uh, Scott would know songs uh, more than I would. I I'm not very good at that, but Okay. Tyson Haynes. Scott, what are you listening to? Pink Pony Club.
I figured. I begged you. Begged for it. Pink Pony Club. Fun fact, yeah, one of our bands is playing that at the concert because it is hilarious.
It'll be your one non-country song. Yeah. I I was at the Keith Urban concert last summer and he played that acoustic and it killed. It's hilarious. And it's our guy Jake on the keyboard.
So he did and he he kills it on the song. We request it all the time when we go and see them. just for humor. Yeah. All right.
Uh I'm listening to That was a joke. Uh what are you actually listening to? I mean, mainly country, but I listen to anything, so I'm pretty open. All right. I'm listening to audio book, Rick Rubin's Let me figure out the name of it.
Rick Rubin who's a famous producer, worked with Run DMC and Johnny Cash and all kinds of people, but he's got a book on creativity. And it is called A where No, the creative act, a way of being by Rick Rubin. Okay. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Um hey, that wraps it up for us.
Again, make sure you check out the Heroes and Healing Music Festival. We'll have all the relevant links posted somewhere, everywhere, as many places as we can. Uh make sure you check in to us out on hamkolive.com. Check out that calendar. Uh keeps you up to date.
Make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter. And please subscribe on YouTube. Once we get to We saw taste. We got a little taste of Chris. Producer Chris, but we need the face.
I mean, if it Let me tell you this. If you liked Chris's modeling of the shirt, wait till you see his face. It is like looking into the face of an angel. It's that difficult to look at. He's that pale.
And then glowing, radiant, I would say. A lot of people describe him as radiant. Uh-huh. Classically handsome is another phrase that gets tossed around when talking about Chris as well. Yeah.
So get those subscribers up. Tell your friends. Tell your family. We need In all seriousness, we need to get some subscribers up so we can do uh a live stream. We got something in the works for the end of the year uh that I can't talk about just yet, but we need to be able to live stream in order to make it happen.
So, please subscribe. Help us out there so we can get this thing going. Uh thanks for tuning in. This is Ham Co Live. Over and out.
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