00:00:02 Speaker 1: Life audio. 00:00:05 Speaker 2: Today, I don't talk about that. John prepares for his Super Bowl and adds a middle initial to his books. Meanwhile, I channel my inner Chris Farley for a church skit and tell you the tale of the Spaghetti treat hoax, plus a conversation about love and the Gospel and why how we present it shows whether or not we really have it. Today's episode is not sponsored by air Travel. Soar through the clouds like a bird, but only after you wait in this line for two hours and we rummaged through your bags. The first a word from our actual sponsor. 00:00:41 Speaker 1: What's upb out there? I'm John, This is Johnny. Let's talk about that. Your favorite neighborhood podcast. 00:00:47 Speaker 2: We're just we're providing a service if you will. Yeah, we're good people. 00:00:52 Speaker 1: Well, well we're people. 00:00:55 Speaker 2: Yeah. This is a big week for you as a church leader. Easter Week. It is big one. That's when you get your creastors in here. 00:01:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, you people, you probably hurt us. We it's our big joke around here because in the church world. Yeah, it's a common saying in the hell. 00:01:11 Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess, guys, this is our super Bowl. Yeah, yeah, I think I remember this. 00:01:15 Speaker 1: We don't say it, but yeah, we've heard it said so many times, like this is our super Bowl, and we're like, yeah, like the resurrection of the Son of God that redeemed all of creation and humanity, right, and it is progressively doing so as compared to the largest football game in America. 00:01:32 Speaker 2: I think the idea of it is that if you're gonna have it, like church has become more of like a show to people, so like you're gonna say, this is the big this is the spectacle, this is the time when we really need to try to retain these people. So like, okay, so they can give an example, so the super Bowl. Even casual fans watch the super Bowl. Yeah, so my wife will watch the super Bowl. Yeah, could not care less about NFL football, but she'll watch the super Bowl. So I think that's that's probably the meaning behind it is like if we're going to ever get these casual fans to become real bands of Jesus, we got to get them on this Sunday. 00:02:02 Speaker 1: I know this, I know the meaning. 00:02:04 Speaker 2: I just just it is a little offensive. Well said that about the super Bowl. Guys, this is our super Bowl. 00:02:11 Speaker 1: No, this is our Easter. 00:02:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, Easter. 00:02:14 Speaker 1: I want to if they ever have me come speak to a team for the Super Bowls. Like, guys, I just want you to know this is our No. I mean it's one of those like I know what they're doing. I have this and you know this. I have this complicated relationship with the idea of church growth. Did I ever send you the thing that it gave me on LinkedIn that day? I don't know, you know, because it has all your skills you put in and everything when I've built the profile and years ago. 00:02:41 Speaker 2: It sent me a thing because I'm as an. 00:02:43 Speaker 1: Executive pastor and collaborative writer and all these different things on there. And it said, and people can give you skills. People can like they can justify or they can quote. I think John's a good speaker or whatever. 00:02:54 Speaker 2: Oh I see, yeah, they're giving you like recommendations. 00:02:57 Speaker 1: I haven't I haven't screenshot it. Yeah, because it said, John Driver, you are missing one critical skill church growth. Yeah, And I was like, boy, am I ever how did you know? But like just that idea? 00:03:09 Speaker 2: Who else was Corinth? No, I don't know, I don't know, don't I never went to the church at Corinth. But yeah, well it's Sunday School numbers were atrocious. 00:03:18 Speaker 1: I just don't want to like I want to. I want to grow, yeah, but I really want to be authentic in the Gospel more than I want to grow now. I really really do. And that's it's easy to say for a guy, is that we don't grow much anymore. I can say that, but we grow and then it changes and people move away, or things happen, or they get mad and they don't like her. Whatever that happens, it's just church. 00:03:38 Speaker 2: With I got mad and didn't like you. 00:03:39 Speaker 1: I don't want to deal. I don't want to worry about that anymore. It's what it is, you know. And all right, I want to worry about Johnny Salvage. That's the real. 00:03:47 Speaker 2: Probab that said come visit this Easter. And John's like, yeah, I give up. 00:03:51 Speaker 1: I don't even care, No, I di I care. I just that's that's what's crazy. It's like I talked to the I talked to the staff a lot about the the parish model throughout history. Be in your community, Be a place where the poor are fed, where the Gospel is preached. Where there when your kids are born, we help. Whenever it's time to re commit someone's body to the ground. We're there when you're in trouble, and we helped create community and we all kind of live in that community together now, don't. I don't know if some you know, middle aged, I mean, I'm like in the dark ages or whatever, if they had a perish somewhere in the middle of England, if they were really that worried about their parish being bigger than the villages perish one town over or not. 00:04:43 Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine because I mean, yeah, the church culture has changed so much, but yeah, was there that exceptionalism where you're like, we have to be doing this better than the next person. It seems like with human nature it would have happened. 00:04:55 Speaker 1: I don't know. 00:04:55 Speaker 2: Did Paul ever write about that the other churches like stop competing with each other? 00:04:59 Speaker 1: Not well, I mean, yes, dissensions and jealousies and factions. He talked. It was more theological dissensions than it was based upon the quantifiable outcome. 00:05:11 Speaker 2: It wasn't like him calling out emphasis but like, yeah, you're growing, but you're not doing it the right way. Like you're growing. But yeah, dude, this is all he was always That's the thing. 00:05:22 Speaker 1: Was only one church in those towns, right, and then the home church is as much a model as anything. 00:05:29 Speaker 2: You know. 00:05:29 Speaker 1: That's something by the way that Francis Chan, I mean, you know, he was a megachurch guy. I love Francis Chan, and he wrote a book called Crazy Love that was like a huge bestseller. He went on that megachurch pastor journey a little bit, and he's in California. And of course I've written for a lot of megachurch pastors and so've I've been around that world a lot, and. 00:05:54 Speaker 2: He really he just he walked away. 00:05:56 Speaker 1: If only guy wanted to be done with that and went to a homeh church model, yeah, and decided, I mean, if you really talk to him or listen to what he says, there's just he I don't know. And I know megachurch pastors at the time that were like on the one guy that I knew real well, and he's like, I think Francis just didn't get it. We can we can have this feel with this good community within Mega and I believe that everybody's called the different things. 00:06:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's okay. I would never just throw everybody in the same pot. That's just because they're a large church that they're doing corporate Christianity and it's it's not the same, or it's they don't care about the people. 00:06:31 Speaker 1: They're better at the growth side of church than I am. And I'm okay with that. We have different games. 00:06:34 Speaker 2: I've been in some big churches that really do care about the people, and I've seen I mean, I've been in megachurches where I was in meetings before I was doing a big event for them, and they were like weeping about like baptisms that it just happened. They were like so dialed in. But I've also seen the corporate side of it that's gross, and I wish that I'd seen some things I wish I hadn't seen too well. 00:06:54 Speaker 1: Again, the church. I had a lot of friends down in Dallas at Watermark Church. I mean that church is more committed tommunity and transformation in the community and serving the poor. I mean then, I mean, and they're huge and they're twenty thousand people, but they had, you know, they they had the right emphasis and the right things. It taught us a lot. 00:07:13 Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know, It's just one of those things. 00:07:15 Speaker 1: Johnny. It's kind of like I could, I can, I can stop writing because I worry about honey, I sell, Yeah, or I can try to write the best that I can and know that that I get to I get to do that. 00:07:26 Speaker 2: And that's what I feel about pastors. Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no sense of yourself. Wow, like that? 00:07:35 Speaker 1: Who was that? 00:07:35 Speaker 2: I can't remember that. It might be caurek a guard Okay, one of those. 00:07:38 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:07:39 Speaker 2: Uh, And that might not be necessarily be a ministry model because you're supposed to be writing for other people. Technically you're writing with them in mind. Yeah, but you're writing in other words. Don't change who you are just to get a public, right, don't You got stuff on your screen that's not you had the what was that? But I hope it wasn't secret top secret things John's got zooming in on the video. John had the screen, our our logos screen on our video. 00:08:01 Speaker 1: And that's always funny because people always let people when we first started songwriting, you need to get this on letterhead. Someone will steal your song. And I was like, even back then, I think I knew no one's gonna steal this. 00:08:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not that good one. Come on, if I think it's good. 00:08:16 Speaker 1: But two, wouldn't it be the best thing that ever happened to us if we had something worth stealing. 00:08:20 Speaker 2: I saw this tweet about Easter Week at a church and they were like, it was funny to me, and I wanted to say, this is why I brought it up to you today. They said, this is where you find out if you're on the A team or the B team worship wise, because if you know, if you don't get the invite to do Easter, you're like, boy, but you guys have a pretty slim You guys have like a nice skeleton career anyway, So it's like all hands on deck, right. 00:08:45 Speaker 1: No, we have we have three bass players. 00:08:49 Speaker 2: Yeah, we do have one drummer. If you're the third choice, buddy, you need to step it up. Well we have. 00:08:53 Speaker 1: We can now bring our other drummer back up from children's because we have. We chatted to the staff and so. 00:08:58 Speaker 2: A children's drummer. He's a little boy. 00:09:00 Speaker 1: He's just he's at. 00:09:05 Speaker 2: He does. He has no gift to bring. Literally, he's that bad. He has no gift, no gift at all. He has no gift for drumming. Honestly, I don't. 00:09:15 Speaker 1: Know are you gonna be here? 00:09:17 Speaker 2: No, I just this is like a tiny break in our schedule, and so we're going to take a little trip, take a little trip. Hey. 00:09:25 Speaker 1: Do you know who didn't take a little trip out of town when they were tired around Eastern Jeez? His name was Jesus, and. 00:09:34 Speaker 2: You know the little trip he took. He went to Hell and fought the devil and got the keys to death, Hell and the grave. 00:09:38 Speaker 1: So why what are you doing? You're trying to just go out of town. 00:09:44 Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm excited for you. I think you need the break. 00:09:49 Speaker 1: No jealousy and me at all. 00:09:51 Speaker 2: You know what we I think the show needs a break right now. So let's take a break and here from a few of our fine sponsors, and we're back. 00:10:12 Speaker 1: I know I am excited for you. 00:10:14 Speaker 2: And I know you're not, but it's okay. I mean I don't need your excitement you. Let me say this though, as we record this tonight, you're gonna get to meet Stephen Coast Chapman because of me. 00:10:23 Speaker 1: No, probably, I'm aware. And you paid for lunch today too. 00:10:26 Speaker 2: I did pay for lunch today. 00:10:27 Speaker 1: That was not intentional. 00:10:28 Speaker 2: I was trying to pay for I'm very magnanimous as a person. I just I love people. 00:10:34 Speaker 1: I just want to do good. 00:10:36 Speaker 2: I don't even want credit. No, you would even mention it. You would even I would never even say it into a microphone. 00:10:42 Speaker 1: Right for millions of listeners to hear, millions and millions all the good things. 00:10:45 Speaker 2: That you know. But yeah, you're gonna get to meet the SCC tonight. 00:10:48 Speaker 1: I think I met him once in passing. 00:10:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not the same. 00:10:52 Speaker 1: I wrote for a guy and he passed away last year named Mike Hamilton, who was the former athletic director right the University of Tennessee, and actually was one of those weird things where I just approached him at an event and it was like, because I really wanted to write, you know, Tennessee stuff. And we became friends and we'd hang out and the book never took off that we were trying to write. Pitched it and did different things, but became a pretty good friends. But he became the executive director of Show Hope Agency for the Chapmans, and I think I had some meetings over there and saw maybe shook his hand or something walking past kind of thing, you know, So I put it. 00:11:30 Speaker 2: Do you remember when I was a youth leader. We were both youth leaders for our buddy Brian, who was the youth pastor of Tennessee, and I would I wasn't doing comedy yet at all, but every now and again I would get a while here to do like a skit before church. And one time I found this really obnoxious looking suit at Goodwill and and I was heavy then, I was probably two eighty, and I was like, I'm going to do Matt Foley. And so I did like a Matt Foley. Do you remember this Chris Farley, Matt fall I. I did Matt Foley before or like a youth He had some Brian wrote some spiritual tie into it. He just wanted to see me do Matt Foley. And I came out and I said something. I was doing the whole like VANDWM by the river thing. And then the thing I remember is I go, uh. I walk over to you, and I go, what do you want to be when you grow up? Young man? You're probably twenty two or whatever, and you go, actually, I want to be a Christian musician. And I go, well, why do you freaking not? I walk over to Brian and I go I can't see you real good days. That Steve Chapman over there, and I had my glasses. Is that Steve Chapman over there? Actually we've encouraged John's songwriting. I wish you would just shut your big Yeah. Anyway, it was a total ripoff of this sketch. But I just remember saying, Steve Chapman. May it made me last because he said Bill Shank said Bill Shakes. Is that Bill Shakespeare over there? Oh? Yes, anyway, you get to meet Steve Chapman and I I want you to call him Steve Chapman. 00:12:50 Speaker 1: Well, there is a Steve Chapman who's. 00:12:52 Speaker 2: Oh Steve and Chapman. That's that's probably why he was Stephen Curtis. Probably I need to ask him that question, because that's true. 00:12:57 Speaker 1: There's like a it's like a Jesus open up blood feud. 00:13:03 Speaker 2: That's why I had to be Curtish. 00:13:05 Speaker 1: He must be stopped. 00:13:06 Speaker 2: It's like Michael J. Fox. He's Michael J. Fox. Because when you go down to like register your name with SAG to become an actor, you get your book, your first role, they go like okay, and they look your name up in the database. Even back in the day pre computers. They would go, we already got a Michael Fox and you go what yeah, and they go, what's your middle initial on you? 00:13:25 Speaker 1: Jay? 00:13:26 Speaker 2: You're Michael J. Fox now, And so that's what happened to Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton was Michael Douglas, but there already was at Michael Douglas. 00:13:34 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:13:35 Speaker 2: So he just couldn't be Michael Douglas. And one of his favorite actresses was Diane Keaton. So he goes, I'll be Michael Keaton. 00:13:40 Speaker 1: I don't know that. Yeah, Well did you know that Ulysses S. Grant his middle initials not really as. 00:13:46 Speaker 2: Ris Stephen Curtis Grantman. 00:13:50 Speaker 1: When he went to his dad had made him go military, sure, to the academy Military Academy. He didn't want to. When he went to West Point right and they were like they just put s in there and he. 00:14:03 Speaker 2: No, he was like, that's not really because it's a lot too much. 00:14:07 Speaker 1: Well, but it's he became then U. S. 00:14:09 Speaker 2: Grant U. S. 00:14:10 Speaker 1: Grant, which is a big part of like the. 00:14:12 Speaker 2: Name, like it sounds very American, the most American. 00:14:15 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that they used it like that for all their propaganda. 00:14:18 Speaker 2: Call yourself dollar Bill, you know what I'm saying, like you're gonna win the election. 00:14:23 Speaker 1: Here's my uncle uncle Sam. 00:14:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild. 00:14:25 Speaker 1: And also you know where I had to see you in my name now for a lot of times because of the other John Driver John C. Driver, because they so some of my things will have John C. Driver now and some will have Johndre. 00:14:36 Speaker 2: I think you seem like a Keaton to me, John, John C. John. That guy knows how to theologize. 00:14:43 Speaker 1: I do have a pseudonym idea. You know how to make your pseudonym, right, you take your middle name. 00:14:51 Speaker 2: In the street. 00:14:51 Speaker 1: You grew up in your mom's maiden name. Okay, so what would be your pseudonym if your middle. 00:14:56 Speaker 2: Name My middle name is Terry and my its main name was Rhymer, So be Terry Rhymer. 00:15:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, no one would ever know. 00:15:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, you can write whatever you want. That's how I check into hotels now, Terry Terry Rymer is it? No? 00:15:09 Speaker 1: Okay, I just use my name because nobody cares. Listen, I'm not gonna reveal my pseudonym. Oh well, because I really may. I have some ideas to write some things that maybe I maybe I don't want. 00:15:18 Speaker 2: Is that a norm? Plume, a pen name plume. 00:15:22 Speaker 1: Maybe I don't want recognition, or maybe I don't want. 00:15:25 Speaker 2: I don't I think if you didn't need attention, we would not be doing this show. You've got to You've got a real problem. But it's okay, John. 00:15:31 Speaker 1: And on that note, listen to my segment we call it. They talked about that. I gotta say my voice. I'm leaning worship or easter. 00:15:52 Speaker 2: Boddy, you're on the A team. 00:15:54 Speaker 1: This is like the halftime show. Okay, oswaldt Chambers. 00:16:00 Speaker 2: Said, wasn't he? The hold on Oswald Chambers was the my utmost for you'd get that book when you graduated a lot. That was a big graduation in the nineties. My utmost for his highest Yeah. Yeah, big devotional guy. 00:16:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, we have shown our ignorance of him, this Jesus. We have shown our ignorance of him in the very way we determined to serve him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not his. We hurt him by our advocacy for him. We push his claims in the spirit of the devil. Our words sound all right, but our spirit is that of an enemy. 00:16:41 Speaker 2: Man. 00:16:41 Speaker 1: This really struck me. It seems so kind of prescient, and I think, you know, it's good to remember when we feel panicked in the modern whatever our modern thing is that the spirit of the enemy, and you know, the the temptation to try to use the name of Jesus to gain things we shouldn't gain. 00:17:00 Speaker 2: Right as like a club, it's always been there, using the Gospel as a club for people, right a club to club somebody with not a club, like join a club. But like we're battering people with the gospel sometimes, I think that's what he means, Like your tone is important, this idea that like, well it's the truth, it hurts, it's working. 00:17:18 Speaker 1: Come on, man, Yeah, if there is no love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, face, inness, or self control in your version of the gospel that you're that you're speaking audibly, that it cannot be the gospel. It cannot be even if you I'm not saying there not a time to call something right or wrong. But if you look at how Jesus did that with people, he always did it with love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness, even if he was rebuking. But the understand when he was rebuking it were. It was the people doing this. 00:17:46 Speaker 2: It was usually the most religious people. Yeah, it was. 00:17:48 Speaker 1: It was the people doing this were who were using the name of his father in a spirit that's not his father's. 00:17:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, and so like. 00:17:55 Speaker 1: But I thought the one to get me that really got me was we hurt him by her advocacy for him. And I've said that to the church without using this quote, like, it would be better for us to stop if we're going to speak in ways or about things towards people that don't love people in the way that Jesus loves them present tense, then it would be better for us to stop claim. 00:18:17 Speaker 2: You were a Christian if you're going to act that way in public. 00:18:19 Speaker 1: Because they think that's how Jesus is, which is how Jesus set it up. He set it up as us to be his body. They will know who you are by your love right, which means they're going to know who Jesus is because they recognize the love of Jesus in you, and not just the love of Jesus from you towards them, but the love of Jesus they see between you and other believers. More specifically, so, the way that we handle our conflict, the way that we lash out or don't lash out, the way that we repent when we hurt someone, because we still make those mistakes. But advocating for Jesus in manners that are contrary to let's not just say the personality, but to the spirit of Christ. And again the spirit of Christ. That list I just rattled off, Yeah, like that's not one of those I think we hear something. It sounds just flowery to us. And scripture like that is the deepest of theology possible in terms of orthopraxy, like the way that you live out the things you believe. What Paul is saying is is, look, these are specific ways, he says, and against these there's no law. There's no law against these, meaning like the law the way of the law is not it doesn't. Oh you can't you can't find something legalistic to overcome these things with. You can't say yeah, yeah, But this topic is the issue of our day. The issue of our day is always for the believer. Am I being transformed by Jesus into the manner of looking more like him? How do what I know that I look like him? Because I will bear the same fruit he bears by the same spirit that is within him, that's within me, and that fruit will look like love, joy, peace, patience, and so like the time spent meditating on those things or evaluating our lives, Like if you really evaluated your life, Johnny, as a believer, what do we look at? We look at church attendants and prayer, and we look at giving and all those things, and those are great. But basically even first John talks about this, but if you do all those things and you still hate a brother or sister, you still hate another human who you have seen, then there's a lie happening within you to say that you love a God that you have not seen. Those two things cannot go because the love of God cannot have a terminal point in your life. And it's not the love of God you're experiencing. That the love of God, by its transformational nature, must go through you to others. It is the way, not only he intends it, it's the way he commands it. That that is the number one command. And I think there's a dis ordering of our commandments where we go, Oh, I can skip as long as okay, I'm doing these other things. It's like no, no, no, He's saying doesn't matter if you have those other things. It's just it's just a loud clanging gong. Now it's just a symbol. It's just making noise. It's not doing his things. So anyway, Johnny, I thought the way you treat people now, someone should say something, and I thought Oswald really came. 00:21:20 Speaker 2: He did, he nailed it. And what's funny is I play the loud clanging gong for the worship team and I did not get an invite to Easter too. I didn't get the planning center. Well, well, planning center is kind of inside baseball for people who don't on a church staff. That's the email system that churches used to plan their services. It's your app. 00:21:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, it tells youation. 00:21:41 Speaker 2: You get to check the box yes or no. Are you willing to play guitar this Sunday? Can we can we mark you down for these next three and you go yes no, And then they go to triage. Is to the next person if you say no. So, yeah, I didn't get the plane. A loud clanging gong turns out not absolutely necessary. 00:21:56 Speaker 1: You know, they should throw some relational stuff into that app, like swipe right. If you're willing to play. 00:22:01 Speaker 2: I think people. Yeah, make it more of a game, make it feel more Yeah, if they church swipes right on YouTube, is it left right? Like? I don't know, I really don't know. 00:22:08 Speaker 1: It's been a long time since it has been Yeah dated. 00:22:11 Speaker 2: It's been a long time. Thank the Lord for that. Thank you Curry, Yes, for keeping me off the market. John thinking Curry, Dan, it's weird. 00:22:18 Speaker 1: I could not handle this guy. 00:22:21 Speaker 2: You know, you're probably right, John. Let's do my single. Let's start with old jokes. We call it joke about that. John. You know what really boils my blood. Faulty spacesuits. It's a dark one. We're starting. I like it. I like it. You know, we're gonna we're going to orbit the Moon for the first time in a while. We're sending man made, man made, man manned spaceships to the man made, man man made man spaceships to the Moon, and we're going to land on the Moon within the year. I think we're going back to the move for the first time since the seventies. I think. So. It's an interesting time and NASA culture at large. But anyway, faulty spacesuits. John. At the end of his service, the Minister told his congregation. Next week, I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read Mark seventeen. The following Sunday, as he prepares to deliver his sermon, the minister asked for a show of hands. He wanted to know how many had read Mark seventeen. Every hand went up. The mister smiled and said, seeing as Mark has only sixteen chapters, I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lyne. You knew it right away. John's like a sword drill you like you seventeen? Good day? Like I'm using that. I'm doing that next time, you bunch of liars. 00:23:38 Speaker 1: How many of you guys have read in the Book of a Hezekaya? 00:23:40 Speaker 2: Your second opinion? Second opinions? First condominiums. John. A guy in court. A guy's in court facing murder charges. The judge says, you're charged with murdering your wife with an axe. A guy at the back of the court yells you monster. The judge then says you're also charged with murdering your mother in law with an axe. The guy at the back of the court again yells you monster. The judge addresses that got the back and says, sir, I realized the charges are upsetting, but please refrain yourself. The man replies, you don't understand, judge. I lived next door to this man for ten years, and every time I asked to borrow an axe, he said he didn't have one. These are some dark jokes today, It's okay, except for the lying when that was just kind of tame. John upon seeing his new store. On seeing upon opening his new store, sorry and reading these. Upon opening his new store, a man received a bouquet of flowers. He became very dismayed after reading the enclosed card, though our deepest sympathies. Suddenly his phone running. Surprisingly, it was the florist calling to apologize for having sent the wrong card with the flowers. Oh it's all right, said the shopkeeper. I'm a businessman and I understand how these things can happen. But asked the floorst I think I accidentally sent your card to a funeral party. I'm sure it's no big deal. What did What did it say? Asked the storekeeper. Congratulations on your new location, which is kind of app honestly sounds a new location. Yeah, or I'll headed to a new location upon death. That'll preach on it, John, boy, this will this is a easter. John. Let's do my final segment this week in history, we call it talk about Then John. This week I had a couple of April Fools moments because this is April Fools Day as we record this. Are you a big April Fools prankster? No, you don't do it. Never posted a faulty. No, Laura and I are pregnant again. I've never done the thing, and goes, oh, holy moly. 00:25:38 Speaker 1: I don't have time. 00:25:40 Speaker 2: I just don't. 00:25:40 Speaker 1: I don't know. 00:25:41 Speaker 2: It's just you're never you do You never practical joke to anybody except like maybe high school. 00:25:45 Speaker 1: Well, I mean you and I are kind of the same in this. You're always I'm always worried that the person that practical joke will be more serious than I am. 00:25:50 Speaker 2: In the turn, they'll jump a level, go psycho on you. Yeah, you don't. You never know. 00:25:54 Speaker 1: You used to have a joke with that. 00:25:55 Speaker 2: What was you would say? You start off simple, like I put cheese was on your door handle, I shut shaven on your mirror. You're like I toilet paper as your law. They're like I poisoned your ferret. Yeah, I don't have a ferret. John. This week nineteen ninety six today, nineteen ninety six, April first, As part of an April Fools Day joke, Taco Bell takes out ads in seven leading newspapers announcing they had purchased the Liberty Bell to quote reduced the country's debt and had renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. In response to public concerns, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry stated that the federal government was also quote selling the Lincoln Memorial to Ford Motor Company and renaming it the Lincoln Mercury Memorial. The prank was successful in that it only cost the US three hundred thousand dollars, but generated a sales increase exceeding one million dollars for the first two days in April, along with a large amount of free publicity. It's seeing the US wow cost the US that I'm think. I'm thinking that means Taco Bell was successful in doing it. Okay, so I'll say, what what the US spending money too? Yeah, that's weird. I think this means because this is a RUSS I get these out the internet, off the web, and so I'm sure. This means that Taco Bell spent three hundred grand but made a million dollars in sales. What do we think that I remember the Taco Liberty Bell. I remember it being a thing in the newspaper ninety six, the Taco Liberty Bell. Yeah, and people are like, come on real, walk them on. 00:27:18 Speaker 1: You know, they stopped making Mexi melks. That's the best thing that happened, you know what. I love the chilito, the chili cheese burrito. 00:27:24 Speaker 2: Yeah. Gosh, man, you could. You needed to be near a bathroom, but man, that was good. The Mexi melt I'm with you, Mexi mount was whyse never come back? They do all these like eighty cents. 00:27:34 Speaker 1: We're bringing them back, your favorites over the decades, and then never bring back Mexi melts. 00:27:38 Speaker 2: Guys do better. 00:27:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you're listening, algorithm, yeah, someone tell Taco Bell. 00:27:43 Speaker 2: So we the other night, Curry goes, I go, where do you want to go to dinner? And she goes, I just kind of want something, and she goes, I'm afraid to say it. I go what she goes, I want Taco Bell. We went to Taco Bell and sat down. Hey, we ate in a taco bell. 00:27:54 Speaker 1: Listen, it's really good. I hate it is really good. 00:27:56 Speaker 2: It's a little more expensive than it ever has been, so you can't just eat like five pounds of food for twelve dollars. It was like it wasn't It was more expensive, but not as expensive as like a sit down place would have been a real sit down. 00:28:08 Speaker 1: Do you get a Mexican pizza? 00:28:09 Speaker 2: No? 00:28:09 Speaker 1: Do you get a nachos belgrande? 00:28:11 Speaker 2: I got a ksadach in case of dia and a hard shell taco. Wow, I'm not I don't. I don't like the fancies fan I didn't have. I didn't have a crunch wrap chance to go and do something special. I know I do like a Mexican pizza every now and again. And those went away for a while too, and they brought him back popular demand. Maybe if we if we get a petition together, Mexi mount Guy's Mexi. 00:28:32 Speaker 1: You never had one. You don't know. It's unbelievable. 00:28:34 Speaker 2: It was very good. It was very good. John This Week, nineteen seventy six. Apple Computer is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. You don't hear about Ronald Wayne a lot. I wonder what happened with them. I'm sure an Apple, an Apple nerd is going to like try to email the show and tell us what happened, because you're about Waz and you hear he was kind of the brains and Steve Jobs was like he had the public facing persona and the drive right, you know, and but who's wrong Wayne? What happened to him? Their first product? This is why it makes the list. Their first product was named the Apple one Personal Computer Kid, and it's sold for a price of six hundred and sixty six dollars and sixty six cents. Now, listen, John, Wow, you already live in a world at this time in nineteen seventy six where people are like, yeah, the mark of the Beast. It was the kind of the seeds of the Satanic panic were starting. Yeah, and you're gonna sell a computer which people think is going to usher in the Antichrist. Probably, let's sell it for six hundred and sixty six dollars and sixty six cents. What are you crazy? 00:29:30 Speaker 1: I technically you're adding two more sixes, but. 00:29:33 Speaker 2: That makes it all the worse. 00:29:35 Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe I think it I don't know it's anyway. 00:29:39 Speaker 2: They'll never be they'll never go anywhere. No, obviously that Apple computer from the beginning, that's not great. John This Week, nineteen fifty seven. The spaghetti tree hoax occurred nineteen fifty seven. The BBC aired as an April Fool's quote news story about the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. It purported to show spaghetti being harvested from trees and laid out to dry as, and claimed that spaghetti trees had been specially bred in Switzerland to produce such uniform length spaghetti strands. After the broadcast, hundreds of people called in to find out how they too could obtain their own spaghetti trees. To make it sound more authoritative, the voiceover was done by respected broadcaster Richard Dimpledby Dimplebee, the idea was the brainchild of panoramic cameramen Charles D. Yeager, who came up with the idea for the hoax after remembering how teachers at his school teased classmates for being so stupid that if they were told spaghetti grow on trees, they would believe it. No, listen these teachers, Yeah, it's really that's not very Just do a better job. Let me tell you why you're stupid. You're so stupid, young person. I'm charged with your education. But it is interesting to BBC. You know these English people are you know Britain. They're supposed to be like the New Americans with you, and they fell for this. They were calling in the station. How do I get my very own? Sorry? 00:31:05 Speaker 1: I remember my. 00:31:05 Speaker 2: Wife telling me that she had a girl in her class. Once asked if there were cheese trees? So was this senior year? Yeah? This was It was old. It was old enough that people turned around and stared, Yeah, where does cheese come from? Cheese cheese trees? John. Finally, the first portable cell phone call occurred this week, nineteen seventy three. The first portable cell phone call is made, and this is why it makes the list. I love it. General manager of Motorola's Communications system division called. Do you want to guess who he called? Because it had to be somebody else with a portable cell phone? Right? Or maybe I guess you could call a landline. I guess you'd call Aline. But who would you call? If you had disinvented something that you had a feeling was going to change the world, you'd probably call your mom. You're not gonna believe this, right, or you call my wife. Call your wife. They called their arrival at AT and T's Bell Labs from the streets of New York City. 00:32:04 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:32:05 Speaker 2: So they basically call, you know, they're like, it's working, you're going down. They to taunt them. 00:32:11 Speaker 1: Wowm that cool, that's cool. 00:32:14 Speaker 2: That's some hater aid right there. I don't know, you don't like that because when you know, Alexander Graham Bell was like what half god rot, you know, it was a big like hmm yeah, and you can get your own for six hundred and sixty six. No. He They called their rival they called the old which that's kind of an old that's an old school hater rut there. Montreolla is onlyer around, right, I don't They probably have been absorbed and they still exist in some other conglomerate form. 00:32:39 Speaker 1: You know, it's like AT and T still is that's true? Who's the last one standing? 00:32:43 Speaker 2: Who had the last still? 00:32:45 Speaker 1: Could maybe Motorola maybe they got maybe they turned into Horizon or something. 00:32:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Motorola was absorbed by somebody and then they were absorbed and absorbed. 00:32:53 Speaker 1: And what was the name of Horizon before his Hoverizon. It was a next till singular? 00:32:57 Speaker 2: Oh singular? 00:32:58 Speaker 1: Was it? 00:32:59 Speaker 2: I don't know. We don't have any information. We'll look it up and we'll tell you next week. On John, How would you send a note to the show and correct all of our many many errors. 00:33:06 Speaker 1: Just send an email to Hello talk about that podcast dot com. 00:33:10 Speaker 2: If you go to talk about that podcast dot com, John, you can find so many of our archived episodes, over four hundred episodes to listen to. Maybe you're on your spring break trip, maybe you're headed out for summer vacation soon. What a better way than to just you know, pass the time. Yeah, because otherwise you're gonna stick your hand out the window and do one of those things. 00:33:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to be doing that'll do that. 00:33:30 Speaker 2: It's a waste of your energy. Pull out your device. 00:33:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh put in sound canceling headphones. You can't even hear the kids scream in the backs? 00:33:37 Speaker 2: Can more? 00:33:38 Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Maybe they're asking for food, but they have to go to the bathroom. But you're here with us, Hey, in here, it's safe. 00:33:46 Speaker 2: It is safe. 00:33:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not advocating. 00:33:51 Speaker 2: Oh, come on, but yeah, I have a have a listen and we appreciate our fine listeners and it means a lot to us. John, I am on tour, yeah a lot this year. Yeah, And I wanted to give a few of my tour dates if I could. I mean, it's weird to kind of you know, ah wow it for yourself. But the Live and Laughing Tour rolls on April twenty third, Thursday, pri twenty third, Magnolia, Arkansas. That's with my buddy Adam Bush, who helps produce this show actually, and Christian McCartney, who's like a big viral. I mean, he has six million TikTok followers. This guy's great. He's young too, so he brings it young energy, crackling energy to the show that it desperately needs. Come see us in Magnolia, Arkansas, April twenty third. April twenty fourth, Cleburne, Texas. That's a suburb of Fort Worth, I believe, so Dallas Fort Worth area, Come on out, Dallas people. Crosby, Texas, which is a suburb of Houston. It's north of Houston. That's April twenty fifth. And then Jonesboro, Arkansas, Sunday, April twenty sixth. I'm also gonna be in West Bend, Wisconsin April eleventh, Yes, April eleventh, So come see me there West Bend at the Bend Theater. That's coming up very soon April eleventh, And those tickets are available at Johnny W dot com, no Age j Owen and I e W dot com. 00:35:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's exciting, it's exciting times. 00:35:11 Speaker 2: A lot going on. 00:35:13 Speaker 1: People are loving the show. We're hearing great things. 00:35:15 Speaker 2: People like the show. And people at my show talk about this show. Yeah, they go, hey, we love this show. Where's John I know he's in the backpack, he's Yeah, you did need to come out. You said you were gonna come on one of the bus tour runs, and I think you're running that time. 00:35:29 Speaker 1: I think it's the fall legg we're out of travel sea. 00:35:31 Speaker 2: They cancel these fall dates. Oh no, that'll be the worst you would have missed out. I don't know. It was a volleyball. I hope you're happy. I'm not. That's good. It makes me happy there. I want you to be a little churning. Yeah, that's fine. 00:35:48 Speaker 1: Well, it was a fun day, guys. Thanks for all the time you gave us. Let's do it again next week. 00:35:52 Speaker 2: You're on talk about that. 00:36:04 Speaker 1: That's the. 00:36:07 Speaker 2: Butt, pas a past that 00:36:15 Speaker 1: Does not