Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: There's a meme my very literary teenage daughter likes. It
Speaker 1: describes different literature styles by nationality. It goes like this,
Speaker 1: English literature, I will die for honor, French literature, I
Speaker 1: will die for love, American literature, I will die for freedom.
Speaker 1: Russian literature, I will die. While I've spent the great
Speaker 1: majority of my life in America, I was born in Russia,
Speaker 1: and I still carry around that Russian stoicism and bluntness,
Speaker 1: especially where death is concerned. The casual way I talk
Speaker 1: about death really alarms my family. Can you not, they say,
Speaker 1: when I talk about death, the way I talk about
Speaker 1: like anything else happening in the future, where I want
Speaker 1: to be buried, what I'd like to see happen to
Speaker 1: my stuff after I'm gone, etc. Or I read this
Speaker 1: thing recently that's for so many people, the last words
Speaker 1: they say before they die is calling out for their mama.
Speaker 1: I shared this with my husband and kids, and they
Speaker 1: did not enjoy that.
Speaker 2: Update at all.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how sweet it was for someone
Speaker 1: in their nineties who hadn't seen their own mother in
Speaker 1: decades to still feel.
Speaker 2: Her and want her when they're on their own deathbed.
Speaker 2: To me, that was a happy story.
Speaker 1: The faces of my family said that they didn't agree,
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to be thinking of their own
Speaker 1: deaths and their mom long gone, so I try to
Speaker 1: tone it down for them. But it is just interesting
Speaker 1: to me how different cultures think or don't think about death.
Speaker 1: I'm scared of death, don't get me wrong. I want
Speaker 1: to live a long life. I want to be with
Speaker 1: my family.
Speaker 2: As much as possible.
Speaker 1: But to me, the whole point is having a limited
Speaker 1: amount of time on this.
Speaker 2: Earth so that we can really appreciate what we have.
Speaker 1: My son sometimes asks me these would you rather questions,
Speaker 1: and one of them recently was would I prefer to
Speaker 1: be twenty years younger today or live till three hundred?
Speaker 1: I mean very much neither. I want to be right
Speaker 1: here where I am. I don't want to be twenty
Speaker 1: years younger. I like my current age and I love
Speaker 1: my current life, and I don't want to live until
Speaker 1: three hundred. I want to do everything I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: do in the time I have and go to my
Speaker 1: grave confident that I've maxed.
Speaker 2: Out my life in every way.
Speaker 1: This is a show about life and about making changes
Speaker 1: to your life to improve it. So it's important to
Speaker 1: think about the fact that life does come to an end.
Speaker 1: Did you spend it the way you intended to? Are
Speaker 1: you making the changes to make it what you want
Speaker 1: it to be? If we don't face the reality of
Speaker 1: death that this all ends someday, what's our impetus to
Speaker 1: improve our lives today?
Speaker 2: As my kids get older, and the.
Speaker 1: Older two are coming up on fourteen and eleven in
Speaker 1: a few weeks, and the youngest is eight, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to hold on to real moments with them as long
Speaker 1: as possible. I realized recently that so many of our
Speaker 1: best memories are on vacation, and that's great, but life
Speaker 1: isn't vacation, and I want more regular day memories together too.
Speaker 1: So We've started doing things like we read a book
Speaker 1: together after dinner, something we haven't done since they were small.
Speaker 1: And I want to take family walks more often. We
Speaker 1: live in Florida, the weather is usually perfect. We should
Speaker 1: enjoy it like we would on vacation. The idea that
Speaker 1: I will die someday propels me to live better. It
Speaker 1: makes me want to waste less of my time to
Speaker 1: focus on the things that matter to me and discard
Speaker 1: the rest. Death doesn't have to be scary. It can
Speaker 1: be the motivation that you need to live. Coming up
Speaker 1: next and interview with Kevin McCullough. Join us after the break. Hi,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Kevin McCullough TV and radio, your
Speaker 1: host columnist at townhall dot com. Kevin is also the
Speaker 1: seer of political things, lover of the Dallas Cowboys, great food, yoga,
Speaker 1: and one very stunning brunette. He didn't tell me to
Speaker 1: say that he hosts that Kevin Show. Thanks for coming on, Kevin.
Speaker 3: Hey, Carol, it's great to see you, and congrats on
Speaker 3: the podcast. It's just tearing up the internet and I
Speaker 3: love it.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. So.
Speaker 1: I've known you a long time and it's still fascinating to.
Speaker 2: Me that you've become a yogi.
Speaker 1: Is it fair to say that was a bit out
Speaker 1: of character for you when that began?
Speaker 3: Very much?
Speaker 2: So? How did it happen?
Speaker 3: We had moved, We moved three times in eight years
Speaker 3: inside the same village, which is nuts. Why would anybody
Speaker 3: do that?
Speaker 2: Would anybody do that.
Speaker 3: But in the last move we left a house that
Speaker 3: had a pool, and our kids were just starting to
Speaker 3: get to the age where they needed to start taking
Speaker 3: swim lessons, so we joined a local Lifetime They get
Speaker 3: no money from me saying this, I get no money
Speaker 3: from me saying this. But we joined the local Lifetime
Speaker 3: workout place near us, and as part of the package,
Speaker 3: they had yoga classes and the stunning brunette of which
Speaker 3: you spoke said to me, I think I want to
Speaker 3: try those, because it's part of the basic package. And
Speaker 3: I said, okay. She was going. This was before pandemic.
Speaker 3: She went probably fifteen or sixteen weeks. She had lost weight,
Speaker 3: she was vibrant with energy. She was feeling so good
Speaker 3: and so confident about herself, and I said, I think
Speaker 3: I want to give that a try too, to which
Speaker 3: she promptly said, now this is my thing. So I said, oh, well, okay.
Speaker 3: Knowing that she was someone who did not like to
Speaker 3: get up early, I knew that they had classes at
Speaker 3: five point thirty and six o'clock in the morning. So
Speaker 3: about a month later I started getting up mysteriously three
Speaker 3: times a week and going and I was lost. I
Speaker 3: didn't know anything about what I was doing. I used
Speaker 3: to make fun of people that took yoga when I was,
Speaker 3: you know, in my athletic years. And I found out
Speaker 3: it was not only one of the hardest things I'd
Speaker 3: ever done, but it was also one of the most
Speaker 3: rewarding things. And I met this great, great, great instructor.
Speaker 3: Her name is Lucy. Shout out to Lucy. She gave
Speaker 3: me some one on one to kind of break down
Speaker 3: what the poses mean and you know why they go
Speaker 3: into order that they go in, cause I knew nothing,
Speaker 3: and about I don't know. Two months later, the brunette
Speaker 3: rolls over to me one morning. She goes, why do
Speaker 3: you get up so early? Where are you going? I said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm working out. She goes, why can't
Speaker 3: you just go work out, you know when I go
Speaker 3: to class? And I said, well, because I'm taking yoga.
Speaker 3: She goes, well, why didn't you just take it with me?
Speaker 3: And I said, well, I didn't want to rain on
Speaker 3: your parade. And so we started then taking regularly nine
Speaker 3: forty five vinyasa flow classes. If people are into yoga,
Speaker 3: they know what vignasa is. It's a very aerobic, intense
Speaker 3: kind of workout, but she get a lot of anaerobic
Speaker 3: muscle training and other things and it as well. We've
Speaker 3: been doing that now for four years, minus just a
Speaker 3: few months that we had to kind of do it
Speaker 3: remotely and other things because of the stupid COVID pandemic.
Speaker 3: But yeah, we've been doing it. And in fact, as
Speaker 3: we are having a conversation at this very moment, she
Speaker 3: is in that class that I am not getting to
Speaker 3: be at because I am talking to Carol Markowitz.
Speaker 2: Wow. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your young.
Speaker 3: Glad to be it.
Speaker 2: So did you always want to be in radio? Is
Speaker 2: that something lifelong dream or radio?
Speaker 3: I mean, i've very very apprecient statement by an aunt,
Speaker 3: my mother's only sister. Actually, she says to me after
Speaker 3: coming over to babysit one night, where I just literally
Speaker 3: she I did to her what my Jonathan, my eleven
Speaker 3: year old does to me. But I just talked her
Speaker 3: ear off all night, and she literally turns to me
Speaker 3: at one point and she goes, Kevin, as long as
Speaker 3: you can make a living with that mouth of yours,
Speaker 3: you're never going to go hungry. I don't think she
Speaker 3: meant it as a compliment, but it was efficient in
Speaker 3: the degree. And then so after that my grand my
Speaker 3: one grandfather, I was a collector of audio equipment, so
Speaker 3: I had like these classic real to real machines. I
Speaker 3: had cassette decks, I had old vinyl record players. I
Speaker 3: had all kinds of stuff, and the kind of crim
Speaker 3: to resistant. The piece to resistance was the day that
Speaker 3: my grandfather let me have one of his old CBE
Speaker 3: radios and I figured out how to input the audio
Speaker 3: from my mixer into the CBE radio. I ran the
Speaker 3: magnetic antenna up the rain gutter outside my window, stuck
Speaker 3: it on top of the house, and began broadcasting on
Speaker 3: Channel nineteen, which also happened to be the official channel
Speaker 3: of the River Oaks Police Department. And they put my
Speaker 3: Shenanigans to rest about six days later. But we had
Speaker 3: some great, great show in those early days.
Speaker 2: It's excellent.
Speaker 1: What would you be doing if you weren't on the radio,
Speaker 1: If you weren't radio.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, I've done a lot of other things, so
Speaker 3: I would probably be an entrepreneur of some sort. But
Speaker 3: I also have a degree in theology, so I would
Speaker 3: probably be involved in in ministry in some way and
Speaker 3: trying to help people. My passion is people and making
Speaker 3: sure that we leave them the best world we can.
Speaker 3: So it's probably something along those lines.
Speaker 2: Do you get recognized a lot?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What's it like leaving a pretty public life.
Speaker 3: I don't get recognized as much as my kids wish.
Speaker 3: I would.
Speaker 2: Believe me, my kids do not enjoy when I get recognized.
Speaker 3: But no, they want me. They like the fact that
Speaker 3: I have a TV show and that I'm on the radio,
Speaker 3: and then I'm on all the other channels and stuff.
Speaker 3: They don't like the fact that almost none of their
Speaker 3: parents agree with me on much of anything.
Speaker 1: Right Well, to Florida, I have an easy solution for
Speaker 1: Suddenly my kids are much more popular.
Speaker 2: That's true their friends.
Speaker 3: I actually think it's not been a bad thing because
Speaker 3: it's caused my children to kind of evaluate what I
Speaker 3: say based on its merits and also a good exercise
Speaker 3: in teaching them to be winsome. You know. I kind
Speaker 3: of approach politics, Not that we're going to get into
Speaker 3: politics here, but I kind of approach it as as
Speaker 3: I would what some people use the term evangelical in
Speaker 3: terms of faith. I want to be a positive advocate
Speaker 3: for what I believe, and I want to win people
Speaker 3: to the ideas that I hold, because I think the
Speaker 3: ideas really are good and I think they really do
Speaker 3: make a difference. So in doing it, winsome is not
Speaker 3: something that our side does sometimes, very often. I don't
Speaker 3: ever want to be questioning the number of eggs that
Speaker 3: some pop stars still has in her womb somewhere. It's
Speaker 3: not that that part of it's not.
Speaker 2: We'll get into Taylor Salt.
Speaker 3: Oh Man, you didn't tell me we're talking Taylor.
Speaker 2: Okay, of course we're talking Taylor.
Speaker 1: So do you worry about them your kids getting like
Speaker 1: repercussions based on who you are?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: There was a recent Abigail Shreier had wrote on her
Speaker 1: substack recently that her daughter was cut from a soccer
Speaker 1: team in California because of who she is, because the
Speaker 1: coach simply doesn't like Abigail.
Speaker 2: I do worry about stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I have not worried about that, but I've felt the
Speaker 3: nasty side of this. I have an adopted son who's
Speaker 3: older than our biological kids, and when I was living
Speaker 3: and working in Chicago before coming to the New York area,
Speaker 3: we were in the middle of some pretty pretty tumultuous
Speaker 3: constitutional questions at the time, and I was talking about
Speaker 3: them on the air loot and I got an email
Speaker 3: out of the blue from someone saying they knew what
Speaker 3: school my child went to, and wow, you know what
Speaker 3: entrance in the building he got dropped off at and
Speaker 3: so forth. I took that seriously, reported it, got a
Speaker 3: restraining order in place. I don't mess around with that stuff.
Speaker 3: I largely don't make reference to my family members by
Speaker 3: name on the air. I know, I just gave my
Speaker 3: eleven year old's name, but sometimes I do that, But
Speaker 3: in large measure, I try to live as anonymously as
Speaker 3: I can. Will that have repercussions for them at some point?
Speaker 3: I hope not, because again, my goal is to engage
Speaker 3: in conversation that is meant to convince and meant to win,
Speaker 3: not to always shove away and push away. There are
Speaker 3: going to be unreasonable people that are going to say, no,
Speaker 3: I just can't be around you because you just discussed me. Okay,
Speaker 3: I don't have to hang out with them, but where
Speaker 3: I can build positive conversation, I'm always about trying, and
Speaker 3: I think it's to our movements detriment that more people
Speaker 3: don't try, Because I think there's a lot of people, Carol,
Speaker 3: especially since your book came out and the pandemic happened.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of people in the middle
Speaker 3: that don't know it exactly everything that they believe. But man,
Speaker 3: if we just had some good conversations and some winsome
Speaker 3: people out there just making the case what good work
Speaker 3: could be done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna have to look up the word win
Speaker 1: some after this conversation.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, but no, I agree.
Speaker 1: I I you know, for the book tour, I had
Speaker 1: a lot of people coming up to me and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not on your political side, or I'm
Speaker 1: a liberal but or I'm a moderate or whatever. But
Speaker 1: I think that these issues around children are really important,
Speaker 1: and I agree with so much of what you say.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, and this is something that, like
Speaker 1: I feel like, doesn't get discussed enough. A lot of
Speaker 1: times you'll see people tweeting or writing you know, I
Speaker 1: don't usually agree with blah blah blah, But who cares?
Speaker 1: Who cares if you usually agree with them or not?
Speaker 1: Just say it, Just say whatever it is.
Speaker 2: You don't need to.
Speaker 1: Qualify that normally you disagree with this person or the
Speaker 1: other one that I really like is I don't always
Speaker 1: agree with Kevin McCullough, but I don't always agree with
Speaker 1: anybody ever, Like I don't have anybody ever that I
Speaker 1: always agree with.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, and.
Speaker 1: I think that people need to kind of dial back
Speaker 1: the idea that when you agree with somebody, you're signing
Speaker 1: up for their whole You know.
Speaker 3: No, actually, I could be fine if nobody said used
Speaker 3: any labels ever, Like if I would be totally totally
Speaker 3: down with people saying I don't know if I'm a
Speaker 3: Democrat or Republican, or a progressive or a conservative, but
Speaker 3: what I believe about the money I earn is that
Speaker 3: I should be able to keep as much of that
Speaker 3: as is necessary to provide them for my family. You
Speaker 3: take the ten biggest issues. Should a nation defend itself?
Speaker 3: Should a nation protect its borders? Should a nation take
Speaker 3: the money from the people that are working or let
Speaker 3: them keep as much of it as possible. Should we
Speaker 3: be kind to children? Should we be kind to seniors?
Speaker 3: You take any of the big issues related to a
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff, and you wipe the labels away,
Speaker 3: and you just talk about the substance this nation would
Speaker 3: be overwhelmed considered Center right to write in terms of
Speaker 3: just how they view the world. The issue is that
Speaker 3: it is very easy to compartmentalize everybody if we can
Speaker 3: label them all, and I think that that works to
Speaker 3: our detriment.
Speaker 2: I definitely agree with that.
Speaker 1: So on your show, you're very and just generally in life,
Speaker 1: you're very effusive about your wife.
Speaker 2: You clearly are obsessed with her. I love it. Do
Speaker 2: you get any pushback or criticism for that?
Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen in the last few years,
Speaker 1: especially around for men. I would say, especially for men
Speaker 1: when they are like, like, oh, I really am so
Speaker 1: in love with my wife, or like really talk about
Speaker 1: their wives in a really positive way, they get called names.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, there was the wife guy.
Speaker 1: It was like the guy that always mentions his wife.
Speaker 1: Like the New York Times had a whole piece on it.
Speaker 1: So do you get that criticism or not.
Speaker 3: No, I've gotten more compliments to that than anything, because
Speaker 3: we just celebrated our twentieth wedding.
Speaker 2: Anniversary last year, so we've we've.
Speaker 3: Been around for a long time. But I would say
Speaker 3: that people that do that kind of thing sadly probably
Speaker 3: don't know the benefit of what a really strong marriage
Speaker 3: partner brings to your life. Look, I'm gonna admit this
Speaker 3: way up front, I way outkicked my coverage on my bride,
Speaker 3: not just in how you know how attractive she is
Speaker 3: and she is stunningly beautiful, though she doesn't believe that
Speaker 3: she is. But she's a thinker, she feels deeply. She
Speaker 3: is a wonderful mother. She manages our home and lives
Speaker 3: almost effortlessly. I mean, I'm shocked at how easy she
Speaker 3: makes it look. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: she's my deepest, dearest, best friend that can can and
Speaker 3: will talk to me about anything, especially very very hard
Speaker 3: things when we have very hard things to deal with.
Speaker 3: And I can't put a dollar of value on anything
Speaker 3: even similar to that by way of people in my
Speaker 3: sphere of experience that have that. If I looked at
Speaker 3: one person and said that person has made more of
Speaker 3: an impact on me personally as a person than any
Speaker 3: other person, it would be her. She edited all three
Speaker 3: of my books. She regularly gives feedback on my column
Speaker 3: and on my show. She is my pop culture critic
Speaker 3: if I get if I get a pop culture reference wrong,
Speaker 3: we do the assignment next weekend on the on the
Speaker 3: TV show on the weekends. It's kind of like a
Speaker 3: weekend update. But if I get an inference wrong on something,
Speaker 3: She's like, you got to change that. I mean, it
Speaker 3: just gives me all of those extra eyes, ears and
Speaker 3: feedback that I wouldn't have otherwise. And that doesn't intimidate me,
Speaker 3: like I'm really grateful that that she's here.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and be right
Speaker 1: back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 3: I was waiting for that question. I don't think I have,
Speaker 3: And I was thinking about this because you told me
Speaker 3: that you ask all your ask that question. I don't
Speaker 3: think that I have. From this standpoint, I have had
Speaker 3: seasons of really great happiness where growth and development have occurred,
Speaker 3: and I feel like, wow, is this it? Like did
Speaker 3: I make it? And I find somewhere not long after
Speaker 3: that feeling that there's always like, oh, I'd love to
Speaker 3: try that. And so I would say I am way
Speaker 3: further from where I started, but I've got so much
Speaker 3: further to go in terms of what I would like
Speaker 3: to see and accomplish and do. And I don't say
Speaker 3: that in a selfish way. It's not that I feel
Speaker 3: like I want to achieve a certain thing for me.
Speaker 3: It's like I have goals for my kids. I want
Speaker 3: to see them successfully transition to adulthood and to start
Speaker 3: lives that they find great satisfaction in peace with. I
Speaker 3: want to make a bigger difference in the world around us.
Speaker 3: My listeners have liberated over the last five years, We've
Speaker 3: liberated forty three hundred human slaves across the globe. We
Speaker 3: have done relief work in places like Israel recently with
Speaker 3: the conflict there. We've helped get people that don't have
Speaker 3: homes homes. I feel like there's always more to do,
Speaker 3: and so I feel like and I coach a lot
Speaker 3: of talent TV and radio talent, and when I tell
Speaker 3: them you're only as good as your last air check,
Speaker 3: that's really true. Whatever you just did by way of
Speaker 3: your last presentation is what your current reputation rides on.
Speaker 3: So I'm always wanting to improve what I'm doing. I
Speaker 3: have good mentors in my life that I seek out
Speaker 3: advice from and feedback from, and then there's people that
Speaker 3: I'm turning around and given that feedback back to as well.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like a never ending process. But
Speaker 3: I figure a rolling stone gathers no moss, so why
Speaker 3: not just keep going.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're missing a lot of that mentorship
Speaker 1: in this country, where people, you know, take somebody younger
Speaker 1: under their wing and show them how it's done. A
Speaker 1: lot of it is also I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people just feel like they know everything already, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have the Internet, like everything's available to me. I
Speaker 1: already know all of it. But I think a good
Speaker 1: mentor know that story that came.
Speaker 3: Out it's important last week or the week before about
Speaker 3: gen z and hating nine to five jobs and how
Speaker 3: they have no.
Speaker 2: Patience, Like that story comes out every few Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: It's like there's a whole generation of kids that not
Speaker 3: only don't know how to do anything, but they don't
Speaker 3: want to learn how to do anything. And I'm really
Speaker 3: fearful that that is going to be a very destructive
Speaker 3: season when they come into leadership in terms of their
Speaker 3: time if they don't, if they don't turn that around,
Speaker 3: because that is that is an awfully ignorant, unhappy, belligerent
Speaker 3: place to live, and one I don't want my kids
Speaker 3: to live there. So that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: we're going to try to help focus them in a
Speaker 3: different direction.
Speaker 1: My only pushback to this is, think about every generation.
Speaker 1: I think, like, look at you know, I'm gen Z
Speaker 1: or that's what I consider myself as.
Speaker 2: Are you right or both?
Speaker 1: GM, Jenet, I'm sorry, Jenny sorry, gen X, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: gen Z. No, we're not gen Z gen X, Yes,
Speaker 1: but do you remember we were slackers? We were the
Speaker 1: slacker generation who like wore you know, the lad shirts
Speaker 1: that didn't want to work. Yes, thinking back to when
Speaker 1: to when we were you know, twenty, they called us
Speaker 1: the slacker generation. There was a movie called Slacker, And
Speaker 1: I think every generation gets criticism.
Speaker 2: I remember thinking Millennials were the laziest people in the universe.
Speaker 2: They were just.
Speaker 1: Always I remember the articles about them where it was
Speaker 1: like Millennials just don't.
Speaker 2: Want to work. But you know, you grow up and
Speaker 2: you kind of face reality.
Speaker 1: And I think what the gen Zers have that the
Speaker 1: Millennials and the gen X really didn't have is TikTok
Speaker 1: or Instagram where they post these videos of like I
Speaker 1: don't like working. Working nine to five is you know,
Speaker 1: for suckers, And so we feel like it's more prevalent
Speaker 1: than other generations. But I think they're going to hit
Speaker 1: the same wall of reality that every other generation hits,
Speaker 1: that this is how how money gets made. You want
Speaker 1: a certain lifestyle, you want certain things for yourself, You're
Speaker 1: going to have to work for it, and then nothing
Speaker 1: is free and that you don't get like only so
Speaker 1: many people get to be top influencers who actually make
Speaker 1: money on these apps.
Speaker 3: I hope you're right.
Speaker 2: So I have hope.
Speaker 1: I have hope that they all every young generation is
Speaker 1: considered lazy, and you know it's those boomers calling all
Speaker 1: of us lazy.
Speaker 2: We should just like all unite against them.
Speaker 3: Well, they're not going to be around much longer, so
Speaker 3: we should probably just cherish them and let them be
Speaker 3: a piece when their time going.
Speaker 2: Too good.
Speaker 1: You're too good, too good, Kevin, So tell me about
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2: You're a huge fan.
Speaker 3: I'm not a huge fan, but I'm married to the
Speaker 3: world's biggest fan. And she literally spent all of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three playing the same playlist throughout our house. I
Speaker 3: think from about January till November when we finally broke
Speaker 3: out the Christmas music.
Speaker 2: No, hey, Taylor has Christmas music.
Speaker 1: I think one of my favorite songs by her is
Speaker 1: tis the damn season. I think that's that's a Christmas hunt.
Speaker 2: No, she goes home for the weekend.
Speaker 3: Taylor and So Salem News Channel is one of the
Speaker 3: places that I work for, and they asked me to
Speaker 3: executive produce an end of year special that we ran
Speaker 3: that was the ten top news stories of the year
Speaker 3: and we used contributors from the channel to put it together,
Speaker 3: and everyone kind of had their own pick, and I
Speaker 3: got to do three of the ten pieces, the issue
Speaker 3: and story and person of who Taylor Swift is. We
Speaker 3: ranked her at number six in terms of general market
Speaker 3: news for the entire year, and the reason was and
Speaker 3: there was no other single person that was just a
Speaker 3: news story except for Donald Trump, that made the list
Speaker 3: by themselves, but she did because she produced more GDP
Speaker 3: than fifty nations on Planet Earth. Last year. She paid
Speaker 3: her sixteen semi truck drivers one hundred thousand dollars bonuses
Speaker 3: for the extra hard work that they were putting in.
Speaker 3: She went out and had five simultaneous albums on the
Speaker 3: Billboard Top one hundred chart in the same calendar year.
Speaker 3: The only other person that's come close to that was
Speaker 3: Elvis Presley, who at his peak had two I mean,
Speaker 3: there's so many things that you could just list. Every
Speaker 3: single stadium that she played set a new attendance record
Speaker 3: for the venue that she was in, and usually she
Speaker 3: was there for two or three nights, so for total
Speaker 3: total attendance for a single event, all three events being
Speaker 3: considered one. She shattered records that had been previously held. There.
Speaker 3: There was just nothing that she didn't touch that turned
Speaker 3: to gold, including when they came to her and they
Speaker 3: said or when she's she thought, well, you know, aris
Speaker 3: tour went pretty well, maybe we should make a movie
Speaker 3: of it. And they, of course had videoed every night's
Speaker 3: performance throughout the whole tour, so they had all of
Speaker 3: the footage. It cost her almost nothing to make. She
Speaker 3: went out and negotiated with the individual theater owners of
Speaker 3: how the release with her, and she starts getting criticized
Speaker 3: by all the smart people in the room saying, well,
Speaker 3: you know, you could have done much better if you
Speaker 3: had gone through us. Well, on opening weekend, she was
Speaker 3: in thirty eight hundred theaters, the most of any movie
Speaker 3: in the country in that year. She grows ninety two
Speaker 3: million in opening weekend, which was more than the other
Speaker 3: top twenty films of that weekend put together. I think
Speaker 3: she did okay, and I don't agree with her. I
Speaker 3: don't agree with her politically on you know, she's very
Speaker 3: I'm pro life, she's very pro choice, she's very heavily
Speaker 3: into the LGBTQ, cause I'm not. They're just things that
Speaker 3: we differ on. But in terms of a forced azure,
Speaker 3: I've never seen I've never witnessed any single one human
Speaker 3: being on planet Earth do what she did in the
Speaker 3: calendar year of twenty twenty three, and I don't think
Speaker 3: there's any way around it. People have to deal with
Speaker 3: who she is and she's and she's also done it
Speaker 3: in a winsome way. She's went out and she's she's
Speaker 3: found new fan bases. I don't you know, the NFL
Speaker 3: probably doesn't consider itself a Taylor Swift arena. It is now.
Speaker 3: But Amy was watching the the Chief's playoff game. As
Speaker 3: she was she was looking up the buffer coat whatever
Speaker 3: coach she showed up, and she's like, I got to
Speaker 3: find out how they made that. She did a whole
Speaker 3: research thing on her phone.
Speaker 2: That was a good story though. It was interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what do you think conservatives misunderstand about Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3: Well because they don't take the time to try to understand.
Speaker 3: I think they just get her wrong a lot. I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: you can, you can say her her songs can come
Speaker 3: off a little bit on the whiny side. She's had
Speaker 3: some mistreatment. She's also made a lot of bad decisions
Speaker 3: when it comes to the guys that she's chosen to
Speaker 3: be with. Ye, so that's kind of like a wash.
Speaker 3: But I think that Peggy Noonan actually wrote a piece
Speaker 3: about her in the Wall Street Journal, and I thought
Speaker 3: it was really well said. You know, she she has
Speaker 3: some profanity in her music, but it's very much, i'le
Speaker 3: compared to most of what the pop culture is these days.
Speaker 3: She does she's not promiscuous. She doesn't she doesn't, you know,
Speaker 3: advance this idea that girls all need to dress like
Speaker 3: street walkers. She is she she carries herself with dignity.
Speaker 3: She has a positive role model on so many levels,
Speaker 3: and she has kind of the heart of a generation.
Speaker 3: And I would say that we need to pay attention
Speaker 3: to how she how she goes about what she's doing,
Speaker 3: because our daughters are going to like her, and we're
Speaker 3: gonna have to. We're gonna have to figure out a
Speaker 3: way to accommodate that or give them really good reasons
Speaker 3: why they shouldn't. But right now, you know, I helped
Speaker 3: make the Friendship bracelets for my bride and daughter to
Speaker 3: go see the movie. We didn't take we didn't take
Speaker 3: the baby girl to the to the Arena show. I
Speaker 3: only took the bride to that, but we did take
Speaker 3: the baby girl to go see the movie.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out how I can take my
Speaker 1: thirteen year old to one of the shows. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's you know, she's a huge Taylor Swift fan. She
Speaker 1: doesn't get one of the I'm going to make it
Speaker 1: hat she wasn't. She wasn't a Swift fan yet. I
Speaker 1: would say she became a Taylor Swift fan in the
Speaker 1: last year. And now Taylor's coming to Miami next fall,
Speaker 1: so you know, the pressure's on. I want to I'm
Speaker 1: going to make it happen for her, But you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's It's interesting because I agree with so much
Speaker 1: of that. It's not my kind of music, but I
Speaker 1: enjoy that my daughter is super into it. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of being thirteen years old and really into different artists,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I enjoy it on in my home,
Speaker 1: so I don't I don't have a problem with it.
Speaker 2: It's not like, oh my god, it turn it's turned into.
Speaker 3: A girl thing. In the McCullough house, the boys, if
Speaker 3: they hear one more song, they're gonna put their head
Speaker 3: through a wall. And then you know, my princess comes
Speaker 3: up and she goes but this is so good you
Speaker 3: just have to give it a chance.
Speaker 1: So right, it's my youngest son is a swift ye. Also,
Speaker 1: I mean he does whatever his sister wants. But also
Speaker 1: the fact that she's dating Travis Kelcey. They were on
Speaker 1: this so much earlier than the story broke, like they
Speaker 1: knew this was coming, you know, I would say very early.
Speaker 2: So he's been very into that.
Speaker 3: I think my bride was actually texting your kids telling
Speaker 3: him all the stuff because she she knew about the
Speaker 3: friendship bracelet at MetLife before he said it on the podcast.
Speaker 3: There was somehow.
Speaker 1: Right same, yeah, there, you know, they're they're really into it.
Speaker 1: So on a bigger topic, what do you think is
Speaker 1: our largest cultural or societal problem in America?
Speaker 2: And do you think this.
Speaker 3: Is the most difficult question that you told me you
Speaker 3: were going to ask.
Speaker 1: It's funny because of the three questions, people very really
Speaker 1: variate between what they think is the hardest one, and
Speaker 1: this is always the hardest one for getting.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I wanted. I wanted to answer it thoughtfully,
Speaker 3: because it's easy to just turn political at this point
Speaker 3: in the conversation and then fall into the labels that
Speaker 3: we just talked about not having right, like, well, if
Speaker 3: we just had a different administration, then the world would
Speaker 3: be different. But that is not my answer to this question.
Speaker 3: I'm a Bible believing, God fearing person. I believe that
Speaker 3: God exists for a reason, and that that reason is
Speaker 3: good for us to understand as human beings because he
Speaker 3: made all of us. So having said that, I think
Speaker 3: the context of what the biggest problem we face, generally
Speaker 3: speaking in twenty twenty four in the pop culture that
Speaker 3: we live in is a lack of accountability. When you
Speaker 3: don't have accountability for your actions, you destroy the universe
Speaker 3: around you. My thirteen year old got baptized this last year,
Speaker 3: and it was his decision and he thought a lot
Speaker 3: about it before it happened. But we had a lot
Speaker 3: of theological discussion about sin and the depravity of man
Speaker 3: and who God is and what constitutes all that? And
Speaker 3: I said, and I've said to him repeatedly, that selfishness
Speaker 3: is in and of itself, what is at the core
Speaker 3: of everything that we would deem immoral or sinful. So
Speaker 3: wanting what I want more than the to the exclusion
Speaker 3: of what everybody else wants or needs, and wanting it
Speaker 3: to a degree that I'm willing to take actions that
Speaker 3: are hurtful towards others, et cetera, is is the That's
Speaker 3: the piece of sin, that is in every sin that
Speaker 3: every sinner ever commits. So how does that work? Well,
Speaker 3: you murder somebody, you don't want that person to live
Speaker 3: for some reason. But it's it's not because of what's
Speaker 3: good for them. It's because you're angry with them. You
Speaker 3: have something that you despise, They've done you so wrong
Speaker 3: that this is the only way they're going to They're
Speaker 3: going to rat you out. Something's going on that that
Speaker 3: that is the core of what that crime essentially comes from.
Speaker 3: And when you live in a society where there's no
Speaker 3: accountability or no check and balance on what your heart thinks,
Speaker 3: then selfishness is what comes to the fore So, I
Speaker 3: really do believe that an internal reflective which come on.
Speaker 3: Has there been a season where we've ever been less concerned,
Speaker 3: I mean, less interested in our own navels than what
Speaker 3: we live through Right now, It's all about me. Everything's
Speaker 3: always me. I want what I want and when I
Speaker 3: want it. We cater to this that lends itself to
Speaker 3: a lack of accountability. The reason the left despises the
Speaker 3: founders and the founding documents of our country is because
Speaker 3: there's so much accountability built into it that you can't
Speaker 3: have one branch of government that's just going to railroad
Speaker 3: the other two and it's clunky and it's inefficient if
Speaker 3: you're the one that's trying to get stuff done. But
Speaker 3: it also makes sure that there's a lot of checks
Speaker 3: and balances, and you could trace this throughout our entire conversation.
Speaker 3: You asked why I have such affection for my bride.
Speaker 3: In part, it's because she keeps me accountable. She is
Speaker 3: someone that I know that at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I have to look in the face of and I
Speaker 3: have to be accountable for what I've done and where
Speaker 3: I've been and why I've been involved in the things
Speaker 3: that I've been involved in because she's going to ask me, hey,
Speaker 3: how is your day. There's just basic restraint that comes
Speaker 3: into a society when accountability is put to people. And
Speaker 3: all you have to do is look at some of
Speaker 3: the biggest headlines right now to see that. One of
Speaker 3: the reasons that I think that Taylor Swift is so
Speaker 3: interesting is that she sought to hold people who did
Speaker 3: her wrong very accountable, and she said, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to let you get away with the stuff that you've done.
Speaker 3: You could talk politics, you could talk Hunter Biden. He's
Speaker 3: trying to evade accountability. You could say that there have
Speaker 3: been people on the right that have tried to do
Speaker 3: the same thing. The reason Nixon had to resign was
Speaker 3: because he was evading accountability for his actions. In other words,
Speaker 3: this is a theme that runs through every life, every person,
Speaker 3: every corner of society. And ultimately, I believe our accountability
Speaker 3: does come from God. I think we are held accountable
Speaker 3: by God at some point in time. But in the
Speaker 3: human sphere, the reason that parents raise good kids is
Speaker 3: because the parents put a check and balance on the
Speaker 3: on the child and they say, hey, no, that's not
Speaker 3: what we're going to do today. We're going to do
Speaker 3: We're gonna do this instead, and you're not going to
Speaker 3: get your way, Johnny, on every single thing that you
Speaker 3: ask for, because Susie's going to have requests, She's going
Speaker 3: to have needs to Living in a community, whether it
Speaker 3: be a family or a larger community, we hold a
Speaker 3: certain degree of responsibility towards one another. It's not it
Speaker 3: takes a village, but it is a we have to
Speaker 3: live together and we have to we have to figure
Speaker 3: out a way to win some lee, figure out solutions
Speaker 3: that help all of us do better. And sometimes that
Speaker 3: means saying no to somebody, and sometimes that means no,
Speaker 3: we're not going to act that way because we didn't
Speaker 3: get our way this particular time. So biggest crisis we
Speaker 3: face lack of accountability, I think across the board is
Speaker 3: really the thing that I would point to and the
Speaker 3: kind of thing that kind of keeps me up sometimes
Speaker 3: at night. I worry about, you know, is the government
Speaker 3: going to slide off the edge because they're trying to
Speaker 3: do away with accountability in different ways. So it is
Speaker 3: to me that's it.
Speaker 1: That was a very winsome answer that leads us very
Speaker 1: very well to our last question. And with your best
Speaker 1: tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3: Wow. Well, there's a lot of things that come to mind,
Speaker 3: and because I am somewhat faith based and so forth,
Speaker 3: I could go in that direction, but I'm going to
Speaker 3: go with this instead. It's probably the hardest lesson I
Speaker 3: had to learn when I was young gerr and growing
Speaker 3: up in a conservative house and always being told the
Speaker 3: conservative answers to life's biggest dilemmas. I grew up kind
Speaker 3: of thinking that I knew it all, and when things
Speaker 3: didn't work out the way that I had hoped they would,
Speaker 3: I could have a tendency to get jaded. And at
Speaker 3: one point in time, I had a friend who was
Speaker 3: very wealthy. He was actually a client, but he was
Speaker 3: very wealthy, and I made some offhanded remark when I
Speaker 3: was playing a round of golf at his golf club
Speaker 3: on his dime. I made some side remark about someone
Speaker 3: being wealthier than God and not knowing what to do
Speaker 3: with it. He wrote me this handwritten letter afterwards, and
Speaker 3: he was like, keV, there's a lot of things that
Speaker 3: are wrong with the world, and I share your passion
Speaker 3: for trying to make things right. He said, but if
Speaker 3: you have this this outlook that you're the only one
Speaker 3: who's right and everybody else is always wrong, you're going
Speaker 3: to self destruct. And because I love you and care
Speaker 3: about you, I'm willing to tell you about this, and
Speaker 3: I think that I need to draw your attention to
Speaker 3: it because I think you need to change. I'd never
Speaker 3: had somebody speak to me that way, especially regarding this,
Speaker 3: And what I learned quickly was that it's not wrong
Speaker 3: to have your opinions based on fact and to try
Speaker 3: to be as as truly truthful and right as you
Speaker 3: can be about everything that you want to do. But
Speaker 3: being willing to apologize quickly and mean it and take
Speaker 3: an inventory of where you're at and adjust and calibrate
Speaker 3: your response to that confrontation is probably one of the
Speaker 3: It's probably one of the healthiest things that we can
Speaker 3: learn how to do. It was a hard thing for
Speaker 3: me to learn how to do. I still don't always
Speaker 3: do it well, but I'm way better at it than
Speaker 3: where I was. And I think that if I could
Speaker 3: encourage people when you're in even if it's an argument
Speaker 3: with your spouse, your kids, someone at work, you know,
Speaker 3: voters in a picket line, and whatever, I mean whatever,
Speaker 3: Pick your scenario. If someone's in your face and they're
Speaker 3: confronting you, if you can take the breath, listen to
Speaker 3: what they're having to say for any amount of truth,
Speaker 3: apply it if it applies, Apologize, build a bridge, try
Speaker 3: to go forward where you can. You're not always going
Speaker 3: to be able to There are going to be relationships
Speaker 3: that break even if you apologize and try to make
Speaker 3: it right. But being humble enough to say I'm sorry
Speaker 3: about stuff you get wrong, and to do it quickly.
Speaker 3: Don't stretch it out and make it take four and
Speaker 3: a half hours to sit you stooping in it all
Speaker 3: night and oh well tomorrow I'll do with it. No evaluate,
Speaker 3: do the assessment, apologize, quickly, repair the relationship. People are
Speaker 3: the greatest commodity on planet Earth, Carol. They are our
Speaker 3: best friends, they are our spouses, they are kids. There
Speaker 3: is no aspect of life that does not involve people.
Speaker 3: And if we cannot find a way to build a
Speaker 3: bridge to people, we don't, we're not going to have
Speaker 3: a good life. There's not going to be anything nice
Speaker 3: about wanting to be around us. And I want to
Speaker 3: I want a nice life. I want lots of grandkids.
Speaker 3: I want to I want to look back when I'm
Speaker 3: done and say, yes, look at what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah I made it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well he is the winsome Kevin McCullough talking about on
Speaker 1: that love talking to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, is that you are a connoisseur of bourbon?
Speaker 3: Am I am? I wrong?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm kind of into Rye right now, but
Speaker 2: yes I am.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you have seen. And I don't
Speaker 3: get a dime for this either, but I was like,
Speaker 3: I got to tell Carol about this.
Speaker 2: You should get you should get some dimes.
Speaker 3: Here is our new favorite bourbon in the McCullough house,
Speaker 3: New Rift, single barrel. Have you tried this New Rift?
Speaker 3: You have to know this. It is the most okay,
Speaker 3: caramely delicious, smooth bourbon that I've found. And it is
Speaker 3: it is not incredibly strangely oddly expensively priced. It is
Speaker 3: really really uh doable but New Riff single barrel, and
Speaker 3: that's my little I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to go check it out. And I think that
Speaker 2: they should be sponsoring that, Kevin.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I you know, I don't know that
Speaker 3: some of my family members would want alcohol as a sponsor.
Speaker 3: What I do, but because I know you like good bourbon,
Speaker 3: I was like, I got to tell Carol about it,
Speaker 3: new risk, single barrel gifts. If we were in the
Speaker 3: same studio, I would have poor Justip, but we can't
Speaker 3: do that today.
Speaker 2: I love you me next time.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to definitely sometime, you know, join together
Speaker 1: over some bourbon.
Speaker 2: Love. Talking to you. Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2: He's Kevin McCullough. His show is that Kevin Show. Look
Speaker 2: it up. It's amazing. It's really well done.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Kerl.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Kevin.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Markowitz Show.
Speaker 1: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.