The Jag Show

Mistress Carrie on WAAF, being embedded with troops, and moving her brand to podcasting

Episode Notes

For decades, Mistress Carrie entertained - and bonded with - the masses on legendary Boston rock station WAAF.  Earlier this year, the station was sold, ending its 50 year run on the air.  Carrie takes us behind the scenes of WAAF - the planned relaunch that never happened - and her journey leveraging her iconic brand as the "Baddest Bitch in Boston" to pivot to podcasting.

We talk about the advent of radio's "Portable People Meter" and how it skewed ratings away from rock stations, moving eventually to the final days of WAAF. Carrie talks about how grateful she is to have been able to send the station off and say goodbye, unlike so many other radio folks who don't get the chance.

In the interim between her radio and podcasting careers, Mistress Carrie started a series of Facebook live videos, called "Cocktails in the War Room." It was hugely successful, allowed her to keep her brand top of mind, and even generated a significant amount of money (via t-shirts) to feed local veterans during the pandemic.

And speaking of veterans, Carrie told us about becoming an embedded reporter (a rarity for music DJ's) with New England troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finally, we close with her experience leveraging her brand and developing her new podcast.

Links:

The Mistress Carrie Podcast: https://mistresscarriepodcast.simplecast.com/

WAAF's Final  Hour On Air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9nWJOoz5kw

Generation Kill on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/generation-kill

Mistress Carrie on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mistresscarriewaaf/

Mistress Carrie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mistresscarriewaaf/

Mistress Carrie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MistressCarrie

JAG in Detroit Podcasts Website: https://jagindetroit.com/

JAG on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JAGinDetroit

JAG on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JAGinDetroit/

Episode Transcription

Mistress Carrie Full Show

Intro: [00:00:00] What's up. It's Andy grammar with JAG. Hi, this is Carly Rae Jepsen, and you're listening to JAG. Everybody's Joe Jonas. How you with Jags? This is Heather knocks, the hottest jacket I've ever seen. Right secrets with JAG. Bob checking in with my homie JAG so much sway with my homie JAG. It's the Jack show podcast.

Jon: [00:00:23] Welcome in. I am John Jag Gay.  Very few radio stations last 50 years. Very few personalities stay in the same place for decades after an incredible run at legendary Boston rocker WAAF, the woman known as the baddest bitch in Boston, Mistress, Carrie, has moved to podcasting and she is my guest today.

Welcome Mistress Carrie.  

Carrie: [00:00:41] Thank you for having me  

Jon: [00:00:42] so much to get to today from the show to your brand, the amazing work you've done with troops and first responders, but let's back up for a bit. You've been someone I've respected in this business for a long time.  

Carrie: [00:00:52] Thank you very much.  

Jon: [00:00:54] You're welcome. We finally got to meet in person last fall at our mutual friend, Andrew Kaiser's wedding.

I sat with you and Mike Hsu, your program director, Joe Calgaro little did I know you guys are planning a complete relaunch of WAAF and little did you know the folks at corporate had other ideas? You've done a million interviews about this, but if you want to, just for our listeners, give the short version as to what happened earlier this year with WAAF.

Carrie: [00:01:17] Well, now I can tell the story without crying. So that's really good progress. Um, WAAF was like you said, a legendary rock station for 50 years. And I was there, um, overall for 29, 22 of those years on the air full time and, you know, rock radio in general and just the rock industry has gone up and down, up and down, up and down over the years it's been in favor, it's been the most popular format and then it's gone away and there wasn't a lot of great new music.

People meter changed how they measured radio ratings. And  

Jon: [00:01:56] let me stop you there for a second, because you know, my background is in top 40 years, of course is in rock. And my perspective from the top 40 perspective was when the PPMS and the meters came in, I had to get to radio geeky here, but it seemed like.

They told the DJ's shut up and play the music and took up a lot of the personality out of radio. Was it the same on the rock side?  

Carrie: [00:02:15] Yeah, it was to a certain extent. And then, you know, six months later they would come in and say, well, we need more personality and you need it. And the difference between something like top 40, which is a way mass appeal.

Format and rock radio. And I've said this many times, and I don't mean to go after Nielsen or Arbitron or any of the companies that monitor radio ratings. But when you work at a rock station, especially, you know, a station, that's got some teeth like WAAF did sure the audience, the target audience is men for the most part, although our ratings were about a third women bad-ass women, by the way.

But if you look at what a lot of those diehard P one, this is my favorite station guys, what they do for a living. We had a lot of first responders, so I'm talking cops, firefighters, EMT, corrections officers, military personnel, guys that are building cell phone towers and electricians up on ladders and Comcast guys like these working.

Guys that are out there, you know, getting it done and they are passionate about the music, but none of the guys I just mentioned can actually wear a people meter while they're working. They can't clip it on their OSHA harness. You're not gonna see a law enforcement officer with a people meter on his duty belt.

And you're not going to see a guy that's working in a maximum security prison going into work with a people meter on. Right. So as much as I know that people meet her is. You know, something that levels the playing field and measures what people are actually exposed to. It's also supposed to reflect an exact cross section of the population of the market that it's measuring.

And I feel like rock radio as a genre because of the audience that listens to that type of music. I don't know. I question, I'm not saying I'm a scientist. But I question whether rock audiences are accurately being measured because of the nature of their employment.  

Jon: [00:04:22] I never thought of that. And that's such a good point because I think about here in Detroit, when I was working at a station that was monitored by meters, there are 2 million people in Metro Detroit.

And there were about 1500 meters. So you were taking one 10th of 1% to represent the whole market. And I hadn't even thought of the fact that there are so many people like a rock radio listener that no chance they're going to have a meter. If they're listening,  

Carrie: [00:04:44] nowhere from their jobs, won't let them, or just, you know, if you're a construction guy, right.

And you're running a forklift or you're wearing any kind of harness and you're up, if you're a roofer, you're doing anything like that, you're not going to have a people meter on. But you are going to have a radio on the job site. That's cranked. I've been to these job sites. I did a thing on the air for years where I would actually go and do a listener's job for the day and broadcast live from the job site.

So I've seen what these job sites are like. And I just question when you have the type of job that a lot of our listeners did, if it's possible for them to participate equally in the people meter process. And if it's not. Then we are not accurately measuring the audience size or the passion of the rock radio audience, which the stations are being sold and put out of business more and more all the time.

Yeah. And it's as if the audience isn't there. And I know for a fact the audience is there. I can't leave the house. And going a gas or go to the supermarket or go get my coffee a dunks in the morning and not bump into people that want to talk to me about why WAAF has gone and how they have no other place to go and listen to the music that they love.

So I definitely think money's being left on the table by radio in general. Yeah. And like I said, I'm not an expert. I'm just questioning it because I know my audience, I may not know a lot, but I know my audience. I know the WAAF audience. And I know this region of the country, and I just don't think that those people are being measured accurately.

And I just, I don't know how to fix it either, but I'm just raising the question.  

Jon: [00:06:23] If only you had a venue where you could measure them more accurately, like, I don't know a podcast.  

Carrie: [00:06:30] Yeah.  

Jon: [00:06:31] Let's come back to that.  

Carrie: [00:06:32] Yeah. So WAAF road, the people meter rollercoaster, we went through the big radio merger with Entercom and CBS.

We got a general manager finally, ironically enough, that used to be the general manager of the competition that we put out of business in the marketplace WBCN years ago. And this general manager really believed in the brand. He understood the audience. Because he competed against us and used to say, Oh, we, you know, you guys used to find a way to pick my pocket all the time.

And so he understood that it might not be the easiest format to sell. It might not be the most high brow. And one of the decisions that had been made years ago is that radio stations used to have a sales department that sold that radio station. So the salespeople listen to the station, they knew the station, they  

Jon: [00:07:25] knew the personalities,  

Carrie: [00:07:26] the culture.

Exactly. And when they made the decision to allow the sales people to sell, whatever station was in the building, salespeople are like water. They're going to go for the path of least resistance. So if you're a sales person and you can sell. Advertising on the red Sox radio network in Boston, or you're going to sell a rock radio station.

Which one do you think is going to be easier  

Jon: [00:07:50] with the merger, even to even a top 40 station, which has just, you know, crank it out.  

Carrie: [00:07:54] Yeah. And so I'm not faulting the sales department, but it just made it easier. And if I were a sales person to be like, hold on, I can put in 10 minutes of effort and sell the red socks, or I can put in five hours of effort.

And sell rock radio. What am I going to do? Of course, I'm going to sell the red Sox.  

Jon: [00:08:12] Ironically, neither one is on the air right now,  

Carrie: [00:08:14] seriously. And so he believed this general manager, Mark Hannan, who I still to this day love. He believed that WAAF was a brand that could be sold and money could be made.

It's not as high brow as the red Sox or some of the other formats that we had in the building. But he understood its power and he understood the loyalty of the audience. And then our program director, Ron Valarie, who was a pit bull fighting for the station for years and years and years retired,  

Jon: [00:08:42] legendary program director.

He was there for a long time to  

Carrie: [00:08:44] legendary. And the guy, like I said, was a pit bull in the industry and he retired and I really. Was waiting to see who they hired as the program director, I was actually asked to apply for the job. And I was like, no, because I, I don't, I don't want to come off the air. I want to, I was the music director at the time.

And so I was really going to judge the future of WAAF and where it was going based on the program director that they hired. And they hired a guy named Joe Caldero out of Milwaukee, who was a rock guy. Was a reputation of rebuilding rock stations and being able to steer them out of the swamp if they were having a hard time and kind of put them back on the right track.

And I was like, okay, AAF, we're good. We got Joe in here. So then Joe and Mark really hit it off. Really worked well together. It was time for me to wrap my contract and all of that kind of stuff. And I said to him, you know, a chef has had some hard years with some upper management that didn't believe in the brand.

They didn't believe in the station. They didn't understand the audience. And it's been really hard kind of flying that flag in the face of people who, you know, I mean, I was on the chopping block for years with old management that I know that they wanted to fire me and somebody like Ron Valarie was there kind of, you know, holding back the water with the dam, you know?

And so I was made the assistant program director and we charted a new course for WAAF and we really started to put the wheels back on the wagon. And then at the same time, our sports station, the red sock station was having problems with its legendary morning show. And they had gotten into some advertiser issues.

Jon: [00:10:21] Yeah. That was WEEI, the old Dennison Callahan show. And they tried to push the envelope and they pushed it a little bit too far and ran into some trouble.  

Carrie: [00:10:27] Yeah. And there were different incarnations of that morning show and, and they had brought in different Cohoes, but the trouble continued. And so they made the decision, I think like a year ago that they were going to let that morning show go.

You can't just replace a legacy morning show on the flagship station, in your market with just anybody and our morning show at WAAF, the Hillman morning show had been around for 27, 28 years and had a great following, had fantastic relationships with advertisers. And so they took Greg Hill and his cohost Danielle, and they moved the other parts of the morning show around.

And Greg went to WEEI and everybody at that point was like, Oh my God, Hey, chef has done whatever you lose your morning show. However, on my end of things, they were saying, look, we're already in the stages of rebuilding and relaunching WAAF. Anyway. So now this is just another piece of the puzzle. We're going to rebrand WAAF.

As a 24 seven rock station, they had experimented years ago with a talk show in the afternoon. It didn't work. They had put a syndicated talk show on at night from Seattle. It didn't work. And they were like, you know what, we're going to be live local and rock and 24, seven, seven days a week, and we're going to do it on a shoestring budget so that our profit margin will be okay because we're losing a massive expenditure of this legacy morning show.

Right. And so we're going to be lean and mean we're going to be super cheap to run. And we're just going to duct tape this thing and we're going to charge towards the horizon. And so that's the radio station we were building and that's the radio station that was going to launch the first week of March, however, president's day weekend  

Jon: [00:12:09] before you get to the next part of that story.

And if you don't want to answer this, that's fine, but. One thing that I've noticed about rock is as some of the audience gets older and then some of the audience changes over. Was there a change in focus on the music of the station? What was the idea there?  

Carrie: [00:12:23] Yeah, so the climate in Boston had changed rock radio wise.

There were three different and still are three different stations servicing the classic rock audience. Right. Then there were a couple of stations from tertiary markets, like up in New Hampshire and in Rhode Island. That we're very heavily focused on classic rock as well. They did play some new music, but not a lot.

And so we decided we are going to skew a little younger. We're going to go a little heavier. We're going to put a chef back as being this taste, making flame, throwing. Rock station again. And we knew that we were going to lose some of the guys that just wanted to keep listening to Jimmy Hendrix, but there were so many other places to listen to Jimmy Hendrickson, pink Floyd in town, that that's not why people were coming to us.

They were coming to us for the personalities, the lifestyle, the rebellious newness of WAAF. And so we were going to tweak the music and kind of allow those classic rock stations to own a lot of that classic rock lane. But we were still going to drive forward with, you know, a lot of this great new rock music, rock radio had a drought for awhile, and there wasn't a lot of great new music to play.

And there's a lot of great new music coming back out again. And so we were definitely going to change it up. We going to put the balls back on the ball, as we were saying, and we were just going to be this unapologetic. Rock station, but that was really cheap to run. So we didn't need to bring in the amount of money that we needed to before, because we were just going to be stripped down and mean like we used to be.

Yeah. And then president's day weekends. We found out that a decision had been made at corporate and they sold our FM signal for cash to a Christian broadcasting company. And we came back the Tuesday after president's day weekend. I did my show from 10 to three. When I got off the air, I got called into the general manager's office with our afternoon host Mike Shu and Joe RPD and Mark, our GM were sitting there as white as a ghost.

And they were like, there's no easy way to say this, but they sold the signal. Our last day on the air is Friday. And at midnight we flip the switch and WAAF has gone. Wow. And it was like someone literally ripped the heart. It was like that scene in Indiana Jones where they ripped guy goes into his chest and he rips out the beating heart and shows it to him.

That's what that moment felt like for me, it was devastating.  

Jon: [00:14:55] Or for your younger audience, the mortal Kombat reference would be just as appropriate.  

Carrie: [00:14:59] Yeah. A hundred percent. Yup. Yup.  

Jon: [00:15:00] So now you're going from this longterm plan of rebuilding the radio station and rebranding the radio station to this short term plan of a couple of days of how the hell do you say goodbye after 50 years?

Carrie: [00:15:13] Yeah. And Mike Shu and I being the on air personalities that were still there that had been on the air both for 20 plus years. Yeah. Ourselves. We really took it seriously. And I got to give a lot of credit to anybody that knows me, knows I don't kiss corporate ass, but Mark Hannon, our general manager and Joe Caldero, our program director fought really hard at the corporate level to allow us to say goodbye, which anybody that loses a rock radio, you just wake up one day, the station's gone.

You never hear from anybody again. And they really wanted WAAF to be able to be sent off properly. And fought really hard that we could be trusted to do that without getting the company in trouble with the FCC or, you know, whatever,  

Jon: [00:15:58] without walking out with middle fingers in a year kind of thing. Yeah.

Carrie: [00:16:01] Seriously. I mean, we're going to walk out with the fingers about, you know, we, weren't going to say the words that were going to get the company find like I myself felt this immense responsibility. To be in that studio at midnight to send it off for everyone that had come before me that played a part in building this monster that I had been lucky enough to be the caretaker of for 22 years.

And so there was nothing that was going to keep me from doing that. And I sure as hell wasn't going to do something that was going to get me ripped out of that studio. And so our bosses knew that they knew Mike and I. You know, we're going to be really careful. And so they, this was Tuesday afternoon, the press release went out Tuesday night at five o'clock.

They said, take Wednesday off the air to just compose yourselves Wednesday afternoon. We'll meet. Yeah. Just process come into the office Wednesday afternoon and let's brainstorm what we're going to do on Thursday and Friday. So that's what we did. And we went in Wednesday afternoon and we started talking about all of the people that we wanted to invite back the old DJs, the old bosses.

We started talking about all of the bands we wanted to reach out to, and then the debate of. What song was worthy of being the last song played on the era WAAF began because that  

Jon: [00:17:18] that's what you spent the most time on. I'd imagine. Right?  

Carrie: [00:17:20] We knew that that decision was going to get scrutinized by rock fans of multiple generations and industry people and musicians.

And we really wanted to get that. Right. And so that was the discussion we started having a Wednesday. Wednesday night, we went out for a couple of drinks and went and saw the Robinson brothers on that brothers have a feather acoustic tour, which was fantastic and a great way to kind of reset our brains again.

And then Thursday morning, we started on the air and started our big two day. Goodbye.  

Jon: [00:17:52] I can't imagine how special that was and you know, and it's not just rock stations that just poof go disappear. I mean, to think of the five radio stations I worked at, I got to say goodbye on two of them, because I was leaving of my, of my own planning.

I mean, I can't tell you how many corporate stories of guess what, um, you're, you're not, you're not working here tomorrow. You're not on the air today or ever again, like I'm envious of you and thrilled, and also thrilled for you that. You guys got to do that and that you did it so well, and you can find them if I can find the link, I'll put it in the show notes too, with the final 10 minutes or so on the air.

I went and listened to it. And you guys just did such a phenomenal job with that.  

Carrie: [00:18:26] It's a gift that is so huge in my mind that I was given by Mark and Joe and Mike shoe as well. But obviously I'm not going to speak for Mike, but I know he feels the same way that. Uh, I don't know how to repay that gift. If I had been escorted out of the building that day, when we found out the signal had been sold, um, I probably would have been, you know, on the internet, you know, riling up the audience to, you know, topple the tower.

I mean, I would have been blind with rage because anybody that knows me. You know, I worked in radio for 29 years. I started at WAAF when I was 18 years old and I never worked at another radio station. I went from an unpaid intern to the assistant program director. Yeah. And it was my soul. I poured every ounce of energy and effort and passion that I had into that radio station for decades.

And to literally with a swipe of a pen, have everything that I've ever worked for be gone. And I grew up listening to the radio station. So when I got a job there, it was like the dream. It's like a kid that grows up playing little league and all of a sudden he's the, you know, the starting pitcher for the red Sox.

It's like, I'm living my dream here. And to have that be gone and to not be able to say goodbye to it properly would have been devastating. And so we really took it seriously and it was really hard to stay composed. I mean, I cried on and off for two days. And for days afterwards, the last 10 minutes that you were just talking about, I mean, I go back and listen, it's gut wrenching, the pictures.

We had a professional photographer in there and video guys in there to make sure we documented it and captured it. And I'm a mess. I mean it I've known people that have died and I wasn't as upset. This was a death for me of a best friend, beloved family member, mentor,  

Jon: [00:20:30] somebody who had a 30 year relationship with yeah.

Absolutely. So the station goes off the air and now you're sitting there with the prospect of now, what, how is it that you got the idea for podcasting and that started to germinate and take shape?  

Carrie: [00:20:46] Well, I had a, a long form talk podcast when I was on the air day, AF we called it mistress, Carrie sidepiece, and it was a place for me to go and have the longer conversations that the people meet.

Our methodology didn't allow me to have on the radio. Right. And then when we moved studios, after the CBS merger, we lost our podcast studio. So my podcast got put on hold, but for years, every interview that I did, you know, all of that content was always put up on the radio stations website as a podcast.

So I had always been a believer in it, but it was just hard to focus on that when you're rebuilding a radio station, hosted a five hour radio show, doing all the other things. And when it was announced that AAF was going off the air, my phone luckily started ringing with radio opportunities, which was fantastic.

Had some great conversations with some people, had some great interviews. And I looked at that as an option, but for the first time in my adult life, I could do anything that I wanted. So obviously, you know, people were telling me, you just need to get into podcasting and you just. You need to get into the future.

You need to, you know, you had a podcast and it was going to be a focus of 2020. He was getting my side piece podcast back up and running because we had gotten a studio where we could work in there for hours. And. And I was like, well, it, you know, it's interesting to kind of see what I could do on my own, you know?

Yeah. And then the coronavirus hit and radio stations started furloughing people in laying people off and all of those possible job opportunities, those conversations stopped now whether or not those conversations restart as the industry, you know, opens back up again. I don't know and I'll have any, and all conversations with anyone that wants to talk to me about an opportunity.

But now I'm locked in my house during a virus where I'm used to being an essential employee and would have been one of those people that was camped out in the studio, working 18 hours a day. Like I had for 22 years  

Jon: [00:22:49] through snow storms and marathon bombings and everything else,  

Carrie: [00:22:53] all of it, nine 11, all of it.

I was always working. And so I made the difficult decision. To invest in myself and in my future, both with my efforts and with my finances. And I started a company and I decided to launch my own podcast. I spent the money and had to, you know, beg, borrow, and steal to get the equipment and the people that put it together.

Because we were doing it during a pandemic. I built a beautiful studio in my house,  

Jon: [00:23:25] which I see right now,  

Carrie: [00:23:26] which you see right now. And I started working on logos and artwork. I'm building a website, I'm building an online store. I'm designing a line of merchandise. And I just dove in and said, you know what, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it, but I have to do it right.

Because the people that listen to me for years expect a certain level of quality. They expect it to sound good. They expect there to be access to the artists that they love. And if I'm not going to be able to maintain the level of workmanship that I had at WAAF, Then I can't compete against myself. You know, at WAAF, we took pride in the fact that we did a really good job, social media, digital video, audio, all of it.

And we worked really hard. And so I have to be able to maintain that level of quality and workmanship. And that's what I'm doing right now.  

Jon: [00:24:23] And I think that's a credit to you carry because you know, you and I have worked a little bit together on being starting the podcast,  

Carrie: [00:24:28] which I really appreciate by the way.

Thank you so much for everything that you've done to help me. It's it's been unbelievable.  

Jon: [00:24:35] Well, I've talked to so many people present company included that have gotten out of radio and into podcasting or doing other things. And I think there's a little bit of a. Uh, I don't know if it's from being from beaten down by corporate or whatever.

I'm and I'm speaking in general terms about radio people here, but. I think when radio people, all of a sudden don't have a studio to go to every day, they kind of have this moment of now what, and what I think a lot of jocks don't realize is the skill set that you have as an on air personality.

Translates to so many other things. Being able to think quickly on your feet, being able to market yourself, being able to have a conversation, all those verbal communication skills. And then in some sense, being an entrepreneurs is something that you've done in that I've done that starting your own company and being your own boss and not having the answer to corporate.

And it's scary and it's terrifying, but once you launch it and you get going. There's a degree of satisfaction there that at least for me, I didn't know, was there until I saw it starting to happen.  

Carrie: [00:25:35] Yeah. I think that there's a lot of mentality that comes from very high up at these big broadcasting companies that you're lucky to have the job that you have.

And there was management that I had not Mark, not Joe, but there was upper management for a while that. Like I said, wanted to get rid of me, wanted to clean house, wanted to change the station, wanted to flip the format, change the logo. I mean, these meetings were happening for years because they just didn't believe in the station.

And when you've got this loud mouth take note purple hair, Boston bitch. They don't know how to handle that and they don't understand it. And so I know my head was on the chopping block for a while. And there was this mentality that came from above. That was well, you're lucky to have a job and what never came back was, but we're lucky to have you, yes.

That never came back. And then I did get that, you know, Mark and Joe will this new future that we were planning for WAAF. They actually said out loud, we can't do it without you. And I was like, what's  

Jon: [00:26:48] say, they're speaking for language at that point. Yeah.  

Carrie: [00:26:50] Yeah. Are you actually telling me that, like you need me because it's all part of the negotiation, you know, they don't want you to know that they need you because then you can demand more money in the negotiation and they don't want to pay you more money.

They want to get you just like anybody else. You want to get what you want to buy for the cheapest price possible. I'm not saying that it's. I understand the concept of it, but the idea, you know, I talked to so many people in the industry and they were like, Carrie, I don't think you understand your brand and what it means to people that you don't understand the value of your own brand.

You don't understand the skill set that you have. And I really didn't, and I'm still learning that now. And. You know, I'm also trying to retrain the industry as well, because there's so much of the music industry that is just so focused on just traditional broadcast radio. Yeah. And they're slowly starting to understand the power of a lot of these new media bunny quotes in the air, you know, outlets that are definitely able to help their artists.

They might not help the chart position on the radio airplay of their song. But the artists and managers and all of those people and the promoters for the shows, they understand that there is power in a lot of other forms of media besides just radio. And I was really hoping that someone was going to launch a rock radio station in Boston to replace WAM Avenue.

It's not going to happen. And so, you know, I have people tell me all the time, like I miss you so much on the radio. I miss spending my day with you. And I miss that too. And I'm trying to find ways, you know, my podcast just launched. The first episode is up. I'm in the middle of editing episode. Number two now.

I also started doing a live Facebook video series in the midst of the pandemic that we call cocktails in the war room.  

Jon: [00:28:47] Then we ask you about that with cocktails in the war room, because that was a way that almost sort of bridged from the radio career to the podcast and career to leverage that brand and stay top of mind with your audience.

Right.  

Carrie: [00:28:58] Totally happened by accident. And our mutual friend, Kaiser was one of the people that kind of talked me into it because he's been super helpful. He's, he's fantastic with computers. And so he's been helping me as well. And, um, you know, he was like, Carrie, you may want to go online and like go live or something and, you know, just kind of let people know how you're doing.

There's a lot. I had been tweeting and putting stuff up on Instagram and all of that, but he was like, you know, there's a lot of people that they just want to know how you're doing. And so I started going live on Facebook on March 14th. So, you know, the last day on the air was February 21st. And then, you know, I went to Vegas, to a convention, lick my wounds, Rast, whatever, try to figure out what the hell I was going to do.

And then I went live on Facebook and 11,000 people watched. And I was like, what the hell? And it was only for like 20 minutes. And I was like, I just kind of want to let you guys know. I grabbed a drink and I sat in a room in my house that I call the war room and I was like, you guys need to drink as I do.

And the virus had already started affecting people's daily lives and. People were like, come back tomorrow. So I started every night at eight 30 going live on Facebook and you know, the, the listenership and the viewership on average was somewhere around 4,000 people a day that were either watching live.

Or would watch the video after the fact, because I would post a video up on my Facebook page afterwards. Yeah. And it was basically talking about what was going on, talking about the news, talking about what was going on in music because the world was changing. Tom Brady went to Tampa, the Boston marathon got canceled.

There's no red Sox baseball. I'm in just, just being a selfish Bostonian in my own little bubble, there was a lot going on.  

Jon: [00:30:43] Well, but these are all the things you would have talked about in the mid day or afternoon on your radio show.  

Carrie: [00:30:47] A hundred percent. And then when you take the lens back and you start talking about the economic implications of the shutdown, and then, you know, obviously as you start looking more into the social news stories of the day and the protests and what is happening in the new civil rights movement right now, which is just a continuation of the old civil rights movement, but everything that happened in the wake of George Floyd, You know, everybody was just stuck in their houses and for the people that were working, you know, I picked eight 30 because there was essential employees for the most part were home decompressing after a really long day.

So I did 81 nights in a row going live in cocktails in the war room. We, in that time designed our work for cocktails in the war room, designed a tee shirt. And we decided that we were going to try and have some positive change from my war room. And so I sold these tee shirts that were made in an, in the USA cotton tee shirts that were designed by a local graphic designer that were printed by a local t-shirt printer that, um, you know, all of these local businesses were hurting.

And I said, I'm going to sell these t-shirts. I had to do it on PayPal because my website's not done yet. And we're going to donate all the profits of the sale of these shirts to a veterans organization that was helping to feed veterans that needed food assistance through the coronavirus, whether they were immunocompromised, whether they were elderly.

And so there were people that were packing up food boxes. That we're don't that we're giving them to these veterans in the trunk of their cars so that there was no contact and it was all donations. And we sold 800. T-shirts just under 800. T-shirts on PayPal, out of my war room. And I'm literally, when I get done talking to you, go into the post office to wait in the line again, to mail out the rest of them because we use the post office to ship them, to put more money back into the economy.

And, um, I am going to be able to make that donation, write out that check next week. And it's going to be if I do my math, right. Cause I haven't paid for all the shipping yet, but if I do my math, right, it's going to be somewhere around $5,300 that we raised. Out of my war room, selling tee shirts on PayPal,  

Jon: [00:33:10] this kind of comes full circle to something we were talking about earlier, Carrie, which is the PPMS did not measure the people listening.

And an, and it did not measure the quantity or the quality honestly, of your listeners. And now you have all this new media, whether it's seeing how many people are watching the Facebook live, how many downloads and streams you're getting on the podcast, how many people are buying tee shirts. And what I love about this is as you're reinventing the brand.

You are getting this real time feedback of who is there, who is paying attention and what an army of people it is.  

Carrie: [00:33:43] It's really crazy. And I'm not reinventing the wheel here. I'm not doing anything new. These are not fresh ideas. I didn't invent podcasting. I didn't invent PayPal, but I'm doing the same stuff that I would have been doing on the air at WAAF.

I just don't have a radio station to do it on anymore. And so what I did was I made some investments in some software. And so now cocktails in the war room went from an every night show as the world is opening back up. Yeah. And I upped the production value. And so now cocktails in the war room is every Tuesday night at eight 30 it's live.

I can now have in-person guests in my war room. But I also have the ability because I've moved something before cocktails in the room was literally my cell phone on a tripod. That's all it was. I made the investment in, bought a light and a tripod. And that was the extent of the production value of my show.

And now I've invested in some software that I can put music and graphics. And I can bring in people remotely, so I can start to do band interviews and have guests, but it's still all live and completely interactive because I'm still getting that real time comment stream from the audience that I can ask questions for them.

And then that video gets posted not only on Facebook, but I had a lot of people say, look, I don't have Facebook. Hmm. Can you make those videos accessible in other places? So I started a YouTube channel and now the cocktails in the war room videos are getting posted after they happen in the war room, up on YouTube as well.

And, you know, as I start doing band interviews, I can take that audio and then put it up on my podcast for the people that want to listen to it while they're driving and they can't watch the YouTube videos. And so it's just giving me away. I'm doing all of this by myself in my house. It's, I've become, you know, I went from a radio programmer and a DJ to.

An it specialist and engineer, a lighting director, a video person, a camera person, a television producer, an audio editor. I don't know what the hell I'm doing over here, but I'm figuring it out.  

Jon: [00:35:49] It's been amazing to watch from afar. And as I was starting to say earlier, You know, the fact that in working with you, seeing how much time and effort and thought you're putting into everything and wanting to get it right to live up to that brand that you've developed over the years as mr.

Carey and making sure that everything is done right, as opposed to just. Throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. I, I really am impressed by that when working with you.  

Carrie: [00:36:11] Thank you.  

Jon: [00:36:12] I do want to mention this because you know, you've talked about raising money for food, for some veterans that might be food insecure for those who aren't familiar with.

You, you've done a lot of stuff with the troops over the years. I know you've traveled overseas. Can you talk about just some of the stuff you've done in that regard? Because I think it's worth mentioning here today too.  

Carrie: [00:36:30] Well, I was, I was raised in a family of first responders. My dad was a firefighter. My mom is a nurse.

My grandfather fought in the Korean war and in world war II, my great grandfather fought in world war one. Um, my uncle, my dad's best friend growing up, uh, he was a purple heart recipient from Vietnam and he is really the first person that. Made me kind of understand the repercussions from traumatic service.

You know, my grandfather never really spoke too much about his service. And now that I've done some research, my grandfather was a, he was ironically a radio operator in world war II is the Morse code guy.  

Jon: [00:37:10] It's in your genes.  

Carrie: [00:37:12] Yeah. And served for almost two years in the South Pacific. And you know, some crazy places during world war II.

And so I was always raised with the idea that everyone is responsible to contribute in some way, shape or form. I was also born with a birth defect that affects the nerves in my foot. And so it didn't allow me to qualify for military service. So I'm not saying I would have enlisted, but it was just, I always knew it wasn't an option for me.

And so I always took my position and my audience and that microphone that I was given. And realize that there was responsibility there as well, that it was my job to try and contribute. That was of course, galvanized on nine 11 as I'm sitting on the air in the studio, realizing I didn't know exactly where our guys were getting sent.

And by guys, I mean, men and women sure. Service members, I knew our guys were getting sent somewhere. I just didn't know where. And I knew that now my generation that really hadn't known large scale war was going to learn what it was like fairly quickly. And that it was our job to not get into the political debate about whether they should be going and what they should be doing.

And just to say, you know what? These guys volunteered during various administrations from both sides of the aisle. And it is our job to just tell them, you know, what we support you. And if you don't like the missions that they're being sent on and the Wars that they're being asked to fight in. Then it's your job to go and vote and vote.

The people out that are sending them, but they have signed a blank check yeah. In service. And it is our job to make sure that when it gets cashed, it gets cashed correctly. But supporting our military should not be a partisan debate. Agreed. And so. It was also, we went, you know, talking about the people that listen to rock radio.

There's so many people in uniform that love rock music. And so those guys were the ones that were serving. And so I started getting mail from Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh, wow. Then I started seeing things on the news that the soldiers weren't being given proper training, they didn't have body armor. They were an SUV or a Humvees that didn't have.

Armor plating. And so I started hearing all of the negative things, but yet the military was buying, advertising and recruiting on my show. So I started going to the military going okay. If these guys are untrained, bloodthirsty, baby killers with no body armor. Why are you using me to recruit new people, to feed into this meat grinder?

Like what's the truth what's really going on. And so I started asking those questions and I started writing letters. We mobilized a care package drive and sent over 2000 care packages to service members that had been deployed from new England. And then the conversation started about, well, maybe I could go over there and see for myself what was going on.

Wow. I tried to go through the normal channels, like the USO and other things. Yeah. And there was even a discussion quietly that some guys from Massachusetts were going to smuggle me on a plane and just fly me into Baghdad and not tell anybody, obviously all of the, yeah, trust me. We had the conversations and we realized it was just a bad idea  

Jon: [00:40:26] for a number of reasons,  

Carrie: [00:40:27] because this was back in.

2004, 2005, when things are really hot there. And so then someone said, I had a Lieutenant Colonel friend at CENTCOM that said, well, technically you are a journalist. You work in the media. So you technically qualify for the embedded reporter program. Oh, wow. So why don't you fill out the packet, the application.

I wouldn't write MREs, Carrie, I would write your real name. I wouldn't write WAAF. I would write the parent company, but apply to be an embedded reporter. Now these are the same credentials that you see Christiane I'm in poor wearing on CNN in the middle of a firefight. Like these are embedded reporter credentials.

And I started the process in, I think, late 2004. And it took, you know, more than 18 months, but it got approved. And then it was a matter of how are we going to pull it off? Is the company gonna, let me go, how are we going to pay for it? How are we going to do the technical side of everything? So my first trip overseas was in September of 2006.

I was embedded as the first non news journalist embedded in a war zone. As far as I know, with troops for Massachusetts in Iraq. To commemorate the five year anniversary of nine 11. I was there for that block of time. And then I went back, um, as soon as I went to Iraq, everybody said, why didn't you go to Afghanistan?

I served in Afghanistan, nobody ever came to see us. And so then on the 10 year anniversary of nine 11, I got embedded again with, uh, troops from Massachusetts in Afghanistan. And so I've been overseas twice. I actually, in 2017 had a third trip planned where I was actually going to. Be embedded with special forces troops.

Oh, wow. Yeah, it, I, it never happened. It got canceled four days before I was supposed to get on the plane. It was going to be a super quiet thing. I found out after the fact that the unit that was going to take me, because I didn't know any of this. They said, would you come wherever we are? Even if we don't tell you where we are.

Well, yeah.  

Jon: [00:42:27] Special forces. Yeah. Okay.  

Carrie: [00:42:29] And I said, yes. And so we did the whole thing. I went through the background check. I did, I did all of it. We got the insurance, we got the equipment. This was going to be way more under the radar, way more stripped down, you know, sleeping in a sleeping bag, like doing the whole thing.

And then it got canceled four days before I was supposed to leave. But then I found out after they came home that they were in Syria. Oh, wow. And so that's where I was headed. Um, but like I said, somebody, I believe at the Pentagon got a little bit of cold feet because some things were heating up there and, um, it never happened, but there was a third trip and, um, you know, I would go back tomorrow.

I, anywhere that our uniformed troops are, or even if there are troops and they're not in uniforms. Cause some of those guys don't wear uniforms. Yeah. I would go, you know, I feel, I felt safer in a convoy. With those guys in Afghanistan or Iraq, then I do half the time when I'm home. So I would go anywhere with them.

Jon: [00:43:25] What was it like doing the show from over there where you're just getting full. Okay. So what was it like being with those guys and were you, where were you eating? Where he, you sleeping, all that kind of stuff.  

Carrie: [00:43:34] When you're an embedded journalist, you become part of the unit, they accept you as part of the unit.

They accept responsibility. It's not exactly what it was like for me, but to give you an idea, If you go and watch that HBO mini series generation kill, go back and watch it. It's like eight episodes. It's fantastic. It's about the initial push of the Marines into Baghdad in the early stages of the war written from the perspective of a rolling stone reporter that was embedded with them.

Now, this was not my exact experience. However, it is very reflective of what it was like the scenes. With the reporter and the troops, the ball busting the joking, like all of that. That's exactly what it was like. But I went over with a producer both times. We did audio interviews, we videotaped stuff. I had a satellite phone, so I could call the radio station, go live.

Anytime I wanted, I wrote blogs about my story and it was incredibly humbling. I learned a lot. Um, I was critical of. Some of the money that I saw being spent in the contracting companies that I saw getting rich, you know, but I lived in the barracks with them. I ate in the chow hall. I flew in the aircraft.

I, you know, drove in the up armored vehicles in the convoys. I mean, I left the wire pretty much every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq. I was embedded with different units about every four days. So I was with the infantry for awhile. I flew missions with, uh, medevacs when I was in Afghanistan, I was embedded with the same guys for two and a half weeks.

And they were infantry soldiers that were Rangers snipers, and they were part of the quick reaction force that was based out of camp, Phoenix and Kabul. And so with those guys, You know, I still have friends from Iraq, but I was only, you know, I was only with those guys for like four days at a time. Yeah.

The guys I was with in Afghanistan, I was with, for two and a half weeks and they were all local guys, the guys that used to listen to my show and they are some of my best friends to this day. And, you know, with some of the things that I've gone through personally, not just losing my radio station, but some other things like, you know, going through an incredibly painful divorce, those guys were the ones that held me together.

And I've become part of their family and they've become part of mine and those relationships. I understand the concept when they talk about like the band of brothers that brotherhood, that once you've served together or deployed together, that you don't have to see those people for 20 years doesn't matter.

And then you see them and it's like, you saw them yesterday. And I, but I'm very quick to say I was not a uniform member of the military. I did not serve my experience came in bite sized pieces, but. I understand more than the average civilian. Sure. And you know, they all think I'm nuts because there was no bigger target in Iraq in 2006 than a female American journalists.

Oh, sure. That was unarmed with bright purple hair in the middle of Iraq. And so there was a definite trust level on my part. Where I literally put my life in their hands. And at the same time I put a massive bullseye on their back. Oh yeah. Because I was now creating a bigger target on them and taking up a seat in a truck, an unarmed seat, you know, so they were one gun short whenever I was on the road with them.

And it just. That respect. It really opened my eyes to a lot of the challenges. It opened my eyes to a lot of the amazing, good things that our soldiers were doing that we didn't know they were doing. And when I came home, I could speak more intelligently about the war in real time, because I had just been there and it also enabled me to go out and advocate.

On their behalf to be able to talk about the challenges and the things that our troops needed and the struggles of what they were going through when they reintegrated back home. And when they got out of the military and came home and tried to go back to just quote unquote, a regular life. And so the agreement that I made with those guys was that you have my back here, meaning overseas.

Yeah. I will have your back when you get home. That is my responsibility and how I am going to repay that. And so I have been, you know, spending I'm a tireless advocate for our veteran community and our military and in turn our first responder community, because so many of our first responders are veterans and you could see it on a day, like a marathon bombing when all of those police officers and firefighters and EMT that were down there that were veterans who understood.

This is an IED attack. This is what's going to happen. And they instantly went back to what they learned during their service and during their deployments and were better trained to handle the bombing because of what they had experienced and been trained to do in their military service. And we are all safer and better for that training.

And so, you know, that's how I spend my time and. It seems weird and fish out of water to have this purple haired rock DJ hanging around with all of these guys with the high end tight haircuts and the uniforms, but they know that I have their best interests and that I have their back and that credibility, you know, I've earned that from them and they have earned.

My loyalty right back. So, you know, they know that I'm here. My phone is ringing at three o'clock in the morning from somebody that just needed to talk. Yeah. You know, and it's, I'm here guys. You know, I love you. I'm here. I support you. I know you're not perfect, but I'm here to, you know, fight on your behalf when you're home.

And I think the military became a very. Hot political football. When you start debating the Wars and the conflicts, we're asking these guys to take part in and, um,  

Jon: [00:49:51] we've said it before and you may agree or disagree with. What they're being asked to do, but even if you disagree, it doesn't mean that you can't support them and the risks they're taking, putting their lives on the line for their country.

Carrie: [00:50:02] Yeah. There was a lot of debate during like the Bush presidency about these Wars, but a lot of those people joined during the Clinton administration. They enlisted that. Like they literally are just saying, I don't know if you're going to need me, but I'm signing up and I'm here if you need me. And then it's up to that administration and our elected officials.

To decide when they get used. So if you don't like what they're getting used for, then go and vote. Don't scream at the guy in the uniform. That's not his  

Jon: [00:50:29] decision,  

Carrie: [00:50:29] it's not his decision. Right. You know, and, and those relationships and those experiences completely changed how I look at the world. I mean, within 24 hours of coming back from Afghanistan, I was in a conference room.

Having a debate over what shade of red should be used in the t-shirt logo for a WAAF t-shirt. And I was like, you guys realize that this doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, right? I mean, it just, it just opened my eyes to really show me what's important and where you can really make a change.

And, you know, those experiences have shaped everything I've done moving forward and, and taking that responsibility. Into this new part of my life with the podcast and, you know, my new company and all the things that I'm doing moving forward, you know, part of what I see as my future is being able to host more of these events, being able to shine a brighter light on a lot of these organizations and, you know, being able to be more involved because I, you know, I'm in control of my own schedule for the first time of my life.

Jon: [00:51:38] Well, now that you've brought it back around to podcasting, as we start to wrap up Carrie. I know you're early into the process. You've got one published at the, as we're recording this on June 12th, you're editing the second one. As you said, what lessons have you learned? Good and bad. So far early in the podcasting process.

Carrie: [00:51:55] Um, you know, the, I think the initial. Being the only person here. And when you have a technical issue with five minutes before you're supposed to record, like that'll scare the crap out of you when you're trying to figure it out, why things aren't working. And, um, I'm also struggling with recording things too far in advance, especially in a, in a time where literally the news is changing.

And you're trying to have conversations with people about current events. There really is a danger of recording things too early and having too much of a gap between when you record them and publish them because they can be dated incredibly quickly. And I'm really starting to learn that I, you know, I had committed to doing an episode a week.

My episodes come out every Wednesday. And what I'm learning is that might not be enough that there's a lot of things that, you know, the pot, my podcast mission statement is. If you live the rock lifestyle, there is a place for you on my podcast because the music is the fiber that weaves us all together.

And it's the shared experience, but it's the whole lifestyle. So I want to keep you in touch with the bands that you love, that you learn to love, because maybe I introduced them to you on my radio show 15 years ago. I still want to be a place that you can go to learn about new bands that you may not have heard of before.

But I want to be that place that also is talking about all of the things that fit. So, you know, I'm a skydiver and if you are into skydiving, there's a place for you. I ride a motorcycle. If you do too, there's a place for you. You know, you might love rock music, but you might love golf. I think golf is stupid, but if you love golf, I respect the fact that you love golf and there's a place for you and you know, the whole lifestyle.

So I'm talking about. The awesome booze that's coming out in this Renaissance of amazing craft alcohol and beers right now.  

Jon: [00:53:56] My hometown of Malden just started, just opened a brewery. I saw. So there you go.  

Carrie: [00:54:00] Exactly. There's great food, awesome lifestyle stuff. I'm talking about, you know, tattoos and cool clothes.

I have interviews scheduled with the companies that actually produce the instruments that your favorite bands play. Oh, wow. That's cool to talk about the science behind why this symbol sounds this way and why this drum. And this would make that drum sound on that record that you love sound that way.

And to talk to the roadies because I was a roadie before I was on the radio, those guys have got the, all the dirt, they've got all the stories. And so to be able to talk about that stuff and the technology behind the live concerts that you love and how they do those explosions and the technology behind the shows.

Like if you love rock music, you are going to find stuff in my podcast that interests you. And it might even be stuff you didn't even know about, but your listened to the episode and go, well, that's kind of cool. But then the podcast is also going to have these conversations about our military stories. I have an interview coming up with a soldier.

That is being portrayed in a new movie. That's coming out about a battle. He fought in Afghanistan and to be able to hear those stories and to be able to eventually bring the guys into my studio that I was embedded with to hear their side of the story about what it was like having me. Embedded with them and  

Jon: [00:55:25] awesome.

I love that idea.  

Carrie: [00:55:27] So there's a lot of stories to be told and they all fit under the common love of this music that shapes our lives and is the soundtrack to everything that we do. And it really does give me the freedom to have these conversations and to decide, you know, what, if someone is a fan of mine, then they're going to think this is interesting.

Yeah. Whether or not the radio station that I used to work for thought it was worthy of talking about it on the air or. Thought it was worthy of making videos about it. And you know, it just, I want to really be able to open up and talk about all of the things that I love, because I love a lot of the things that our audience loves to, or my audience.

I still say our, like I'm talking about the radio station, it's a hard habit to get out of.  

Jon: [00:56:11] Yeah, it is. But I think that you don't have anybody you have to answer to at corporate anymore. You, you have the total 100% creative and freedom control over what you want to do for this brand. And I, and I'm loving seeing the passion in talking to you about this, about.

The sky being the limit for you in all the different things you can do when I'm, I'm so excited for you.  

Carrie: [00:56:31] It's exciting. And at the same time, it's really scary because when you're the one making all the decisions, when you fail, it's your fault too. Yeah. Fair enough. And so there's, you know, there's that fear as well that, you know, it's all on your shoulders.

Good and bad. But the audience has been there through thick and thin with me. And they are showing me through the response very early on with the podcast that they're still there and that they want to support the things that I'm supporting and passionate about. And we're in this together. We're a mob, we're a gang, we're a, we're a tribe.

We're a cult. You can call us whatever you want. But whether you hang out with us in the war room every Tuesday night on Facebook, or you listen to the podcast or, you know, the events that I'm going to start putting together, once we're all allowed to go outside again and. The shows and, you know, it's just, it's, it's going to be really, really exciting.

I'm, I'm super happy about how things have gone so far, but, and I've had the little glitches here and there, but so far it's been okay. Awesome.  

Jon: [00:57:29] So it is the mistress Carrie podcast. And where can people find you on social carry?  

Carrie: [00:57:33] Uh, Facebook and Instagram at MREs, Carrie WAAF. I'm keeping the call letters on the end of the handle for posterity sake for now.

Um, you can find me on Twitter at MREs Kerry. And, uh, mr. Is carry on YouTube as well. So, um, I'm out there. I'm everywhere. I even got ticked talk. I haven't made a video yet, but I got to take doc account. I just I've been debating how stupid I want to make myself look on the internet.  

Jon: [00:57:59] All right. You've caved on that before I have  

Carrie: [00:58:00] so, but I at least have the account.

Jon: [00:58:03] There you go. And do you want to mention any, uh, organizations you work with for veterans? They want to give any of them a plug, any specific groups or  

Carrie: [00:58:10] there's so many, um, you know, Massachusetts for, you know, as blue of a state, as people perceive us to be, uh, it's all the, also the birthplace of America and the birthplace of the United States military.

So we have a very long history of supporting the military. So we have a bunch of fantastic organizations that have come out of here. I'm talking about the home base program, which is on the leading edge of post traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury research, which is a partnership between mass general hospital and the Boston red Sox.

I ran the marathon for them last year homes for our troops that has built hundreds of homes that have been personally customized for challenges and, uh, disabilities of our veterans around the country is from Massachusetts. Um, there are just so many, there are a ton of wounded veterans. Motorcycle runs that happen around the country.

The wounded veterans started with the Boston wounded veteran here in Boston. And my buddy, Andy, who has a book coming. He's a Marine veteran who has a book coming out called the rifle about all of these world war II veterans that he's been meeting and having autograph this rifle. Wow. And his story is amazing.

And I'm going to have him on the podcast because his book is supposed to be launching later on this year. So there's just, there's a lot of great work being done here. And, um, you know, it just, they're all linked on my Facebook page. You don't have to go far with the hashtag support the troops before you start finding my tweets and finding the things and you know, the different organizations.

I do a lot of work with the national guard. Um, because I was embedded with a lot of those guys overseas and yeah. You know, I'm just honored and, uh, you know, humbled that they have. Kind of taken me into to their family and their causes and have allowed me to kind of advocate on their behalf. It's it's been incredibly rewarding for me.

Jon: [01:00:10] Excellent. Mr. Carey, it's really been fun getting to know you over these last few months, and I'm so thrilled for you and the podcast and all the things that are on the horizon for you.  

Carrie: [01:00:18] Thank you. I'm sorry. I talked so long.  

Jon: [01:00:21] I knew you would. It's part of your charm really appreciate you spending some time with us today.

Take care.  

Carrie: [01:00:26] Thank you so much.

Outtro: [01:00:28] Thanks for listening to the Jack show podcast. If you'd like what you heard, be sure to subscribe in Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get. Your podcasts. New episodes are published every Tuesday and Friday morning for help with your podcast. Find JAG on social media at JAG in Detroit.

Or on the web at jagindetroit.com.