AM Show Hr 1 | Joe Espada’s Call-Up Moment, a Fake Dentist Strikes Again

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Very Show is on the air.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Good morning, Captain, good morning, Captain, good morning, Captain, good morning, Captain,
good morning, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
And Captain wants come on out and they wake up
the sunshine and share this ring an interpdown in signing.
Some we sing post where friend see you and you're
going down town to bree everybody says good morning, good morning.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
When I was a kid, I was the most obsessive
sports fan you would meet. And if you might have
been that way, particularly young boys, you were a young man,
I would wash cars and lawns for spending money for

(01:42):
the I didn't have anything to spend it on. We
were out in the country. There wasn't anything out there.
There was nothing on the line you could buy. You
couldn't get anywhere to buy anything. So money was a
very little value, except for the fact that I could
subscribe to Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News. Sporting News
being superior because you would get the box scores, you

(02:04):
get the details and games around the league. It was
always interesting to me at about this time of year
where opening day of the baseball season would roll around.
Football has always been has always had primacy in the

(02:24):
state of Texas, and then there's baseball. But there's a
window of time within which basketball has its moment. And
I took Crockett to Rockets game on Sunday, and I honestly,
I hadn't been in a while. I'd forgotten what a
show it is, what an entertainment experience it is, and

(02:45):
how much fun that whole thing is. But I always
felt for basketball because from now until the playoffs, you've
got this interruption by baseball beginning and theasketball playoffs, everybody
comes back because baseball is kind of settled in and
you know, we got a long season, so we don't

(03:05):
have to watch every baseball game, but we can. Well,
those son of a guns with the Astros have out
done themselves. I received from a number of people by
email yesterday a video and have you seen it? Romon,
If you haven't seen it, I cannot properly describe it,

(03:27):
but I'm going to try. Astro's manager Joe Aspata gives
the call up is when you go from the minor
leagues to the bigs, the big leagues. Joe Aspota starts
into this little speech and he brings Cam Smith's mother

(03:47):
in to experience the moment that he's going up to
major league baseball. Here is the actual video that was taken.
I always said, like if you if someone pills that.

Speaker 5 (04:04):
Joe, you're going to the big leagues, who will be
the first person you will call?

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Who will be the first person you'll call? I say,
my mom, my dad? Like that right, because I think
you want to share with someone who.

Speaker 6 (04:16):
Who's been there for you from day one, literally drove
ball good days, bad days.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
So we're about to do that right now.

Speaker 7 (04:23):
So I'm gonna make your phone call someone, and that
someone's gonna come out here.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
It's got a petal the special announcement there. Okay, let's
see if I can find this number. Hello, are you here? Okay?

(04:49):
That that crying is new Astro camp Smith.

Speaker 8 (04:58):
Pa.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
I know there's no crime in baseball, but my goodness
to see a big, old grown man just melt because
he's getting the news. But also his mom's part of it.
Oh it is. You got the videos all over you.

(05:23):
You can get it anywhere. It's on our it's on
my Facebook page, it'll be on our blast today. Just
take him in it and see it. But this is
what it's all about. This is Cam Smith, the newest
Astro and I think this kid's going to be fantastic.
This is him giving all the credit to his mother. Folks,
this is what it's all about.

Speaker 7 (05:44):
Everyone understands the astros number one prospect, Cam Smith is special.
Managers Smith and his family a gift that the pressure forever.
The moment that Smith found out he will make his
major league debut comes with a big surprise along with
a lot of emotions and tear.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
I mean, I'm just so blessed with this opportunity at
sea dream come true for.

Speaker 7 (06:05):
The first time. Cam Smith can flash a major league smock.
Still overwhelmed by the moment that he found out he'd
made a big league roster for the first time.

Speaker 9 (06:16):
His mom was the right person to tell Can Smith
that he make mentally roster.

Speaker 7 (06:22):
It spot his play and included a late phone call
Monday to Florida, instant plane reservations and a mom's promise
to keep it all a seat.

Speaker 9 (06:31):
I was a single mom for a while, you know,
when he was little, through those pivotal years of travel ball.

Speaker 7 (06:36):
And the Astros number one prospect you dominated spring training.
Had no idea until his mom walked into the Astros clubhouse.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
And my mom offed in right after it, and I
broke down and still.

Speaker 9 (06:53):
As soon as I saw Cameron, I had to turn
mom on and I just I held it together because
I knew I had to.

Speaker 7 (07:00):
Not that long ago, Cam Smith and his mom only
had one another and a promise to find a way
to keep his baseball dream a lot.

Speaker 5 (07:09):
At one point, it was just me and her in
the house. She struggled to take me into baseball games
and practice, and I'm just happy to do it for her.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
It was so surreal just.

Speaker 9 (07:22):
To tell him his all of his dreams have come
true as the greatest gift, like the absolute greatest gift
to a.

Speaker 7 (07:30):
Mother, all the twenty two years old, still his mother's son,
Cam Smith and his family made the major leagues, and
they did it together. I asked Cam's mom how many
people will be in his section on Thursday afternoons. She
rattled off about a dozen names and then assured me

(07:51):
that many more have been calling. They all want to
share the moment in person. What a great player, what
a great family.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
You realize how many hours she has driven him to practice,
She has driven him to the batting cage. She has
driven him for travel ball, she has driven him to tryouts,
she has sat on metal bleachers, she has sat out
in the sun. To every one of you parents, whatever
your kid does, sports or whatever else, that you've been

(08:19):
there for everything. God bless you. That's what makes the
world go crazy.

Speaker 10 (08:22):
Bird And I tip my hand to the keeper of
the star and the salt.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
Loving breaking of homes.

Speaker 11 (08:38):
To me, what aggravated me about my gabar And this
is particularly on his ass being from Erne, Texas and
knowing me if people like me and some good friends
of his, who is not all part of this skinny
many forty ounce weightlifting commit it. Okay, I've got pleasure

(09:02):
on my booty. I've got I've got stuff I call
around my abdomen, which I just named floods fluds.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
That's my new word, floods.

Speaker 11 (09:12):
I got overflowing floods hanging on the floor. Just obesity.
My license plate is O B C T. People don't
get that, but I am a large woman. I'm not
getting on your economy ass airlines. If you're gonna put
me on your greyhound bus, you will take out that

(09:33):
seat rest because I'm a large woman and I probably
have brought eight balloona sandwiches and about a six pack
of orange crush and not dye of sola water. Can
I get a grape juice and some orange juice? Throw
that woman some Shanika come in here, mastive button. I

(09:53):
hate this, damn I roy pot or whatever y'all have
me on there? Okay, put it back on the Michael
Bears Show. What is Michael Beer talking about?

Speaker 4 (10:14):
I'm gonna just call my phone. I pick up against
my better judgment. They sneezed, coughed, and then hung up.
I'm so tired of these cold costs. There's a story

(10:35):
about a man that broke into a church. The popo
chased him around inside, and they finally caught him by
the organ. At a job interview one time, I was
asked to describe myself in one word. I said laxative,
because I make crap happen. Joke is better if you

(11:02):
don't use crap. Ramon, but you understand. Yet another fake
dentist is arrested. I'm just gonna tell you all something
right now. I'm not the smartest guy, but here is
my rule of though. If you go to the dentist
and It's in the middle of a section eight apartment

(11:22):
complex and your dentists. POOKI comes to the door. You
got five stolen TVs on the wall. Fellows are throwing
bones out in the yard. He is running around. I'm
gonna tell you that's probably not a licensed, trained, experienced dentist.

(11:45):
KPRCTV with yet another fake dentist.

Speaker 12 (11:49):
Arrested operating out of apartments in southwest Houston reportedly used
pliers on a woman to pull her tooth, which caused
it to break and damage her jaw.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
It is hold on second of.

Speaker 13 (12:02):
Mine, I asked Joe.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
Then is that La Yes, sits down?

Speaker 14 (12:07):
Good good.

Speaker 4 (12:09):
This is at least the fake, the fifth fake dentist
that we've told you about in the Houston area over
the last several months.

Speaker 13 (12:16):
The Laplaza apartments isn't where you would normally go for
a dentist appointment, but neighbors say it's where people would
visit Caesar Perez. He was accused of performing unlicensed mental work.
An anonymous neighbor told us about it in Spanish. We
use a translator set.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
He had his little clinic there at his house on
the dew Moth.

Speaker 13 (12:35):
HPD says Perez is accused of operating on a woman
back in September. Record show he pulled the woman's tooth
with pliers, which cause it to break and damage her jaw.
The neighbor says Perez told him about prices.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
He was charging anywhere from two hundred and fifty dollars
in a He said if I ever needed any work,
then he said he knew how to take teeth.

Speaker 13 (12:55):
Out of record show, Perez was already in custody for
an unrelated aggravated a ALT charge in February. Alejandro Moncada
says he attacked her at the apartment complex.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
I was sitting down and he came out with a
screwdriver and was assaulting me. We had to call the cops,
and when the cops came, he was still on a rampage.

Speaker 13 (13:13):
She says he confused her with a different woman.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
He told me that my older daughter shuttered his car windows.
The thing is that's not true because my kids are small.

Speaker 13 (13:23):
Mankata says she also knew about Perez's alleged unlicensed dental
practice and feels safer with him in custody. Perez was
placed on an ieshold right after his arrest in February.
Those with any information about his dental work or asked
to contact HPD.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
He is due back in court in May. I guess,
I guess it happens. I guess it does happen. ABC
thirteen reporting that several of these steers the roads that

(14:02):
got loose on I forty five North after the rodeo
and we're jamming up traffic on I forty five North.
They say one of them is still missing. They're not
going to tell us what color it is, but they're

(14:22):
giving us the color of the trailer that it came
out of. It came out of a blue trailer. So
if you see a random steer seems like it's ambling
around and you're not sure if that's one of the
lost steer from the herd on I forty five North,
if it looks like it comes from a blue trailer,

(14:45):
which it might be separated from by a mile or two,
then if you see something, say something, because the trailer
it was in was was blue. We don't ramon. I'm
I'm making a point that.

Speaker 15 (14:58):
We don't want to give you the color of the
steer because the color of the steer ends up upsetting
other steer you see so we're not going to give
you the color of the steer if you have.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
You know, I heard of forty steer and looks like
maybe one of them you got. Now you got forty one,
and you're thinking, let me go check see if that's
one of those steers got out. What does it looked like? Ooh,
we ain't not playing that game. Yeah, yeah, I saw
one running away from forty five. I did. I saw

(15:38):
one running away from forty five. But I didn't want
to make any assumptions or nothing like that, and or nothing.
I didn't want to upset anybody. But yeah, the trailer
is blue. Trailer is blue. And the guy that was
sitting on top of it for a while I was

(15:59):
wearing a red shirt. He's not there anymore. Yeah, that's
all you needed. A very show.

Speaker 6 (16:05):
Please clap, please, please clap when your baby please annoyed?

(16:29):
A nobody.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
Was all the.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
I don't you feel like a cry?

Speaker 8 (16:42):
She was in labor, and he was annoyed. Not because
his wife was in pain, mind you, but because she
was interrupting his piano practice. He was a classically trained musician,
and the baby coming into the world that night was
no Beethoven. He was sure of it. Too much, too
much fuss. He preferred structure, scales, silence, but that baby

(17:08):
had other plans. From the moment that baby could stand,
he didn't walk. He strutted. He banked pots like drums,
and howled along with the radio like a wounded cat
and heat. By the time he was a teenager, the
neighbors had nicknamed him that noisy boy down the block.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
He liked.

Speaker 8 (17:28):
And in school he didn't fit in. He wasn't the
quarterback or the mathlete. He was the kid in the
back of the class, sketching skulls on his notebooks and
humming yardbird riffs under his breath. He tried being a
drummer once, but the sticks couldn't keep up with his spirit.
He had to be out front, center stage, not just

(17:49):
seen heard. So he found some other misfits, glued feathers
to his mic stand, painted his pants on, and screamed
his way into rock history. He blew out speaker, burned
through hotel rooms, and danced like a marionette set on fire.
They called him a madman, a rock god. He called
it Tuesday, And just when the critics thought he was

(18:17):
a footnote from the seventies, he leaned back, hid a
note nobody expected, and reminded the world that some legends
don't fade, They just grow louder in the memory. He
may not how like he once did, but the echo
he left behind still rattles the rafters. So ultimately his

(18:39):
father was right. He was no Beethoven. He was louder,
louder in voice and spirit and everything. Where Beethoven had orchestras,
he had marshal stacks, where Beethoven moves souls. He rattled bones.
He didn't write concertos, He let them on fire air

(19:00):
and strutted through the smoke. Beethoven wore tales. This one
wore scarves and eyeliner, and still millions listened, millions felt something,
not in a concert hall, but in a garage, a basement,
at midnight drive with the windows down. He didn't compose

(19:21):
for the elite. He screamed for the restless. Steven Tyler
or In March twenty sixth, nineteen forty eight, Happy Birthday, stepd.

Speaker 4 (20:17):
Part of me says, little buddy, you should have more
late night bourbon fueled creative moments, because I always enjoy
what you put together. Part of me says, is he
creating demo tapes right in front of my very eyes

(20:38):
to go off and do his own show? Maybe don't.
Maybe what if we play one of those he gets discovered.
Huh has something to think about right there. That is
something to think about. So Jim Mackingveil known to the

(20:58):
world as Mattress Mac has a voicemail. He contacted me yesterday.
I can't remember what it was. And I called him
back and he always picks up, but this time he
didn't pick up, and I was listening to his voicemail.

Speaker 6 (21:14):
Do you have it?

Speaker 4 (21:16):
I think Jim loaded it. I was listening to his voicemail. Well,
if Jim didn't load it, we'll fire him. He says
something in his voicemail that don't send me an email
because I don't read him. I don't have time to
read them because I'm focused on the people right in

(21:38):
front of me and taking care of the customers. And
I thought about that for a good hour afterwards, because
it was a metaphor for something. How many times do
you walk into a store, and especially if it's not
owner operated, or even in that case, sometimes the owner's

(21:59):
not there. You walk into a store and the employees
were supposed to be there to help you are off talking,
especially if they're young. They're off geegan talking to each
other what they're gonna do, and it's almost like it's
a hassle for you for them to help you. Like
God got to help that guy too, because he came

(22:21):
in the door. But that's the whole reason that place exists,
is the person who comes in the door. Are you
call ABIs nobody answers? If anymore? I called the Ace
Hardware Langham Creek location yesterday. I was going in the
afternoon to visit Rick Tap, who's one of my Ace
Hardware Texas dot Com chows sponsors, almost going to swing

(22:42):
in on him, and it was such a nice thing
because I've only ever emailed or texted or called him.
But I thought, I'll call the store. I just want
to see how the store answers were not called. And
it was a chirpy young lady and she picked up
Ace Hardware Langham Creek. How can I help you today,
I said, Rick Tap, and she said I'm sorry, like

(23:04):
you could tell she was genuinely sorry. It kind of
took her mood down a notch. She was not able
to put him on the phone because clearly, even if
I'm selling him life insurance, I needed to talk to him.
And I said, well, I'm about to head out and
visit with him. Is he there today? And he's out
at lunch because it's about one o'clock. She said, no, sir,

(23:26):
he's out of he's out. I find out his mother.
His a mother who's in her late eighties, and I
think she lives in Oklahoma. She lives somewhere off and
so he goes once a month to visit her for
three days and then comes back. And I said, well,
do you expect him back tomorrow? And she said, no, sir,
he'll be back on Friday. And I said, oh, I

(23:47):
felt so quaint. This was like nineteen seventies. I've called
a person that speaks English as their first language has answered.
They seem happy to help me and answer my questions.
This is the this is the moment in the movie
where the naive employee is giving away information that causes
the person to be kidnapped, right because they're not sufficiently

(24:11):
so sophisticated that they're not answering your questions and they're
hanging up on you. And so we talked for a while,
and I thought, Wow, that's a throwback. That's kind of
ace hardware, you know, the helpful hardware man kind of thing.
But who very few places you call a Corey Diamonds.
You're gonna you're gonna get honey, But most places you
don't get a human anymore. Anyway, it just struck me

(24:35):
that Mac is saying in his voicemail exactly what I feel,
which is, know your priorities, no matter how big, how important,
how many couches beds that he sells, he knows that
the most important thing is a person walking through the door.
How many people understand that? Is the Michael Barrys shows

(25:05):
who can't get over that He's no Beethoven?

Speaker 6 (25:08):
Did you?

Speaker 4 (25:09):
You must have been hitting the sauce hard to just
sit down and write that. They did it sober For
Steven Tyler, Oh my goodness, Brandon writes a note on
crying in baseball. My parents dedicated countless hours watching me
play from T ball through my high school years. Dad

(25:33):
even coached several of my little league teams and spent
so much time sacrificing his own body while I developed
into a pitcher. I don't care if it came from
Tom Hanks or Penny Marshall or George Patton. You can
cry in baseball. Ask anybody who was there when lou
gerrig delivered his retirement speech. Ask anyone who watched Gibbey's

(25:55):
broken body walk it off for the Dodgers in eighty eight.
He didn't walk it off. He jogged. While he's starting
the chainsaw man. You can see that even the celebration
is exacerbating the pain, but he doesn't care because this
is the moment. More recently, how about the Astros Game

(26:17):
five in the seventeen series. Those are just the professional moments,
not the millions of others made between parents and kids
for the true American pastime. No crying in baseball is
the led Zeppelin effect. People repeat it because they think
they have to. And a happy birthday to Tennessee williams.
Oh I was kidding when I said there's no I

(26:39):
said there's no. I know there's no crying in baseball.
But if you have not, you just tuned in. If
you have not seen the video of Joe Espada the
call up with Cam Smith where they have his mom
come walking in and he realizes that he's been called
up to the bigs and that his mom is there

(27:02):
for the moment. I think that was as much. I
think he expected he'd be called up. It's just going
to happen to me. I think he's first four at bats,
he had two home runs and two walks or something.
It just play discipline and extreme power. Wow. But you know,
so much of life the older I get is having

(27:25):
the sense to slow down. There are so many things
whizzing around us, having the good sense to slow down
for a moment. So I spend time with my dad
every afternoon at the old Folks Home, and one of
the things that strikes you rather quickly is that the

(27:49):
people are talking to each other.

Speaker 10 (27:53):
And it goes something like this, but hell, hell, hell,
huh what s she said?

Speaker 4 (28:03):
What time is gonna eat?

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (28:06):
Five?

Speaker 4 (28:08):
Five? Think five? What they said?

Speaker 6 (28:10):
Five?

Speaker 4 (28:11):
Well they have to do huh? Well they have what.
I can't hear you. I can't I can't hear what
you're saying. What what is she saying?

Speaker 6 (28:21):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (28:21):
She's wants to know what they're serving this evening? Oh
was shoot, I don't know, I don't know. Probably the
same thing they had yesterday. She's just she said, she
was just she's not trying to side if she's gonna
eat in a room or in the living room. Huh,
she's she's trying to nothing. Huh. Well that's what I said,

(28:45):
you know. But in the midst of all of that,
they're actually interacting with each other. And it's amazing. You know, everybody.
Crazy things happen in the course of every person's life,
and that's always been the case. You know, the wheel
was invented during some new's lifetime and that changed everything.

(29:06):
But in the course of my lifetime, we went from
nobody had a cell phone to everybody had a cell phone.
You go into rural villages in India where they eat
a little bit of rice and a little bit of
doll every day, and that's it. No shoes. They got
a cell phone. Everybody's got a cell phone. It's crazy.

(29:28):
But the important part of that is that the phone
didn't do this. We did it to ourselves. So here
is Mattress Mack's voicemail message. I think there is incredible
wisdom in this. Give this a listen. Ohing.

Speaker 14 (29:46):
I'm currently with a customer. Please don't leave a voicemail.
I will see your caller ID on the phone and
call you back. Please don't try to FaceTime me. I'm
too old, I'm too tired, I'm too involved in this
game of pleasing customers. FaceTime anybody, and.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
Don't email me.

Speaker 14 (30:02):
I don't read the emails. I take care of customers
all the time. I'll see your caller ID, I'll call
you back. Until then, have a great day, and I
hope you slept great last night. On your gallery furns
your temper petit mattress.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
At the tone, please record your message. So Chance McLean
sent me something he was reading my full named George
mac I don't know who he is. And it's called
high agency. And because we're such an attention deficit society,
it says high agency in thirty minutes. I follow some

(30:36):
sites that I read columns and perspectives and opinion, and
they tell you how long it's going to take to
read it before you read it. And I'm ashamed to
admit I love that. In high agency, he describes as
the most important idea of the twenty first century, it's
the sense that you were in complete control of your life.
And he talks about the person with high agency your

(31:00):
life is the person that if you were wrongfully imprisoned
in a third world country would be the one person
you would call because they would get you out. And
he's this is the line I wanted to get to.
High agency can be a confusing idea to understand because
it's not just one idea. It's a combination of three

(31:22):
distinct skills rarely found together. Number one clear thinking, number
two bias to action, and number three disagreeability. And here's
what I have come to learn. Donald Trump is very disagreeable.
To the swamp, for the Democrats, to the media, Mac
is very disagreeable. People will sometimes tell me if Hillman,

(31:44):
Fertita or Mac or Trump or someone else that that
pert Mac goes. You know, everybody thinks he's an ass.
He has to be an ass. If you are going along,
you're just You're just being pushed along with the herd.
In order to have high agency, in order to take
control your life, in order to be great at what
you do in every aspect of your life, you have
to break all the rules. You have to refuse to

(32:06):
play by the rules. You have to turn down the
meetings and the conference calls, you have to turn down
the I'll do it because you know everybody else is
doing it. Disagreeable can be a great trait