Cameraman Poker & Pregnant Day-Shift Strippers

Sometimes the most extraordinary stories emerge from the most ordinary circumstances. In this captivating rideshare journey, we meet a nonprofit worker visiting DC for what should be a mundane grants management conference (complete with an elderly barbershop quartet singing custom grant-themed songs!). But beneath the surface lies a fascinating life where opposites truly complement each other.

We weave through DC lore and the connection between the JFK assassination, Reagan shooting and a cameraman poker game, humorous tales of pregnant day-shift strippers in Springfield, IL, and celebrity encounters at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Buckle up...Let's Drive!

Connect:

RSRT Facebook

RSRT Instagram

RSRT TikTok

About: Foundation Digital Media | Kuna Video

Transcript

Welcome to Rideshare Road Talk

Speaker 1 0:11

Welcome to another episode of Rideshare Road Talk Conversations in Motion, a podcast where we create unfiltered talk space that examines the meaningful lives of my passengers while engaging in personal and topical discussions. The meaningful lives of my passengers while engaging in personal and topical discussions. I'm your host and driver, john Foddus, and we're cruising the streets of Washington DC. Buckle up, let's drive Where's home for you From DC or somewhere else.

Speaker 2 0:36

No, I actually live in central Illinois. Oh, okay, I've been there for a year and a half. I'm actually originally from the west coast, so Portland.

Speaker 1 0:45

Oregon area. Oh nice, okay, yeah, I had um.

Speaker 2 0:49

My uncle lived in Ashland for a little while oh cool little artsy Shakespeare town yeah, that's where my college is out of.

Shelly's Incredible Camera Career

Speaker 1 0:57

Okay, cool well, you know you're at the Hinkley Hilton right yes, that is what I learned yeah, and uh, the little. Uh, the spot was like right down there. If you haven't seen it where the shooting was, it was a long time ago but it's still interesting very interesting, interesting history yeah I um, I used to be a television cameraman in dc and we used to have this poker game and it was just camera guys only, and so if you weren't a camera guy, you couldn't play. That was the rule.

Speaker 2 1:31

Okay.

Speaker 1 1:32

Well, there was this guy who was kind of an older gentleman. His name was Shelly Feelman, and Shelly was an NBC cameraman and his first day on the job was in 1963. Shows up at work and Kennedy was shot that day. Wow, oh, can you imagine? They say, hey, here's a bag of money, you have to go to the airport, you're going to go to Dallas, and so that's what he did.

Speaker 2 2:00

Wow.

Speaker 1 2:01

Now Shelley likes to tell the story while we're playing poker. Okay, so for the uninitiated, it's like you're playing poker with history right. And so Shelly goes on to tell the story how he gets to Dallas and he makes his way to the police station and he goes down to the garage and then they literally walk Lee Harvey Oswald out right in front of them. Oh my gosh, and that's when Jack Ruby shot him, wow, right in front of Shelly. He was there for that.

Speaker 2 2:30

That is incredible.

Speaker 1 2:32

It really is. I still get kind of chills retelling that story, and so where I'm going to take it full circle is. You know that was Shelly's first day on the job. Shelly went on to just work at the white house and do all kinds of fun stuff for nbc and um. Shelly was part of the travel detail travel pool and he was the one that filmed reagan being shot.

Speaker 1 2:55

Oh my god so lightning struck twice for shelley. Shelley shot that footage that everyone and their mother has seen a hundred times of Reagan getting shot. The police officer, the Secret Service, all that stuff Crazy.

Speaker 2 3:09

That is.

Content Creation and Nonprofit Work

Speaker 1 3:10

I think Nat Geo did a whole series about him and a couple other guys that were involved with that.

Speaker 2 3:16

Oh, how cool.

Speaker 1 3:17

So anyways.

Speaker 2 3:18

That is very cool.

Speaker 1 3:20

That was the cameraman poker game.

Speaker 2 3:24

My husband actually is a content creator. He has aspirations of being an actor comedian someday, Okay.

Speaker 1 3:34

Is he funny or does he just think he is?

Speaker 2 3:36

No, he is actually very funny. Okay, he has been making these little character videos since YouTube was created, so he's been on YouTube the whole time, okay, and then he went viral during the pandemic on TikTok Ooh, and so we went from. I work for a nonprofit, he was working at the hospital as a housekeeper in a small town and in a couple years we we were able to he quit his job and he does it full-time now so he is funny, he is, he's got.

Speaker 1 4:11

It's very funny, he's got some.

Speaker 2 4:13

He's a character actor. He really would love to someday be on snl, all right, but the joke is that like he does that and then I do grant monitoring.

Speaker 1 4:26

Okay, wow, opposites attract, so you watch glaciers is what you do.

Speaker 2 4:31

Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:32

You watch glaciers melt.

Speaker 2 4:36

I'm looking at spreadsheets and writing reports and policies and he's in our basement yelling at in front of the green screen and making jokes.

Speaker 1 4:43

I absolutely love it.

Speaker 2 4:44

But it's been a really great because it let us. We were able to move wherever we wanted. We moved to central Illinois, which is way lower cost of living than the West coast, so we're just coasting now. It's great and I get to travel with my job.

Speaker 1 4:58

I have nothing for central Illinois, or I mean I was in Springfield once.

Speaker 2 5:03

Yeah, so we live in Peoria's, about an hour and a half north of Springfield okay and it's very interesting because we have a real downtown, although it's a little dead, but it does look like a little miniature downtown city, okay, and then five miles from that it's farm and nothing. Okay.

Speaker 1 5:26

Yeah, I remember it being a little rural, so there is a very much.

Speaker 2 5:31

it's a really interesting place to live because there's very much an inner city culture and then a farm town culture very close to each other. So it's been really interesting for us. But we live in the city proper and we really love it.

Speaker 1 5:45

Okay, I don't really remember much about my time there. I was there for a wedding and my wife was in the wedding party, and so I was kind of turned loose on the streets of Springfield and I don't remember there being much to do. So this is a very long time ago and I'm somewhat embarrassed to mention this, but I somehow went to a strip club because you know my wife's just like that.

Springfield Strip Club Stories

Speaker 1 6:07

She's totally fine with it yes and um, so I go in there. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to stay. And there's like there's like one person in there dancing and she was like seven months pregnant and she wanted me to do a lap dance, so I'm like yeah, I think I'm good.

Speaker 2 6:21

I mean I'll give you 20 for the kid you know, yes, but I just I don't need the lap dance. Oh, that is really funny. So anyway.

Speaker 1 6:29

so I retold that story to the wedding party and of course they thought it was like the greatest thing ever.

Speaker 2 6:35

Was that the day shift stripper?

Speaker 1 6:37

That's exactly what it was. It really was. You know props for, you know trying um it was a fun wedding. I uh, it's like just a random hotel and you know a big ballroom oh yes, was it maybe like the abraham lincoln? There's a lot of abraham lincoln things there.

Speaker 2 6:59

You know we really like that, and there is one hotel that's pretty well, it's big. I I don't even remember.

Speaker 1 7:06

all I know is there was another ballroom adjacent and there was like a postal service costume party going on. That's wild and of course I was like half in the bag hammered and I go over there and I'm bringing people in costume into the wedding reception. Like people dressed up as like Twinkies and the Incredible Hulk and all of a sudden everyone's on the dance floor twerking the Twinkie.

Speaker 2 7:28

Before twerking was even a thing. That is too funny.

Speaker 1 7:32

I invented that with a. Twinkie 20 years ago, I don't know. Um, so that's all I have for Springfield. Yeah, which is enough?

Speaker 2 7:40

I think, yeah, I think that's a good that's, that's a pretty good Springfield experience. My, our main. I work for the State Domestic Violence Coalition so our main office is there, but I don't have to go there, which it's very boring there.

Speaker 1 7:53

That's ominous work, but it's good work clearly.

Speaker 2 7:57

Yeah, it's the kind of work I've been doing that for years and that's the kind of work where, when you tell people what to do, they're like, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 8:05

But you know, but you know it's important and we've got to do it. Special place in heaven for people like you that do that work.

Speaker 2 8:12

Oh, thanks.

Speaker 1 8:14

Yeah, yeah. So what brings you to DC again?

Barbershop Quartets at Grant Conferences

Speaker 2 8:17

I'm at a grants management conference this week, so you know all that nerdy fun stuff. We had a barbershop quartet at our keynote.

Speaker 1 8:27

That was really fun. You can't really write that, can you? You just can't. Who's planning this event?

Speaker 2 8:36

I mean there are other nerds. Yeah, I sent it to my. I have a 13-year-old daughter and I have 10-year-old twin boys and I sent it to my daughter and she sent the eye-rolling emoji and I said, yep is this is nerd central. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know it's entertaining, but it was very funny okay I was like, oh okay, we're having songs and this is my first year coming to it, so I don't know if that was a special for this year to lift our spirits, win the grants world or not.

Speaker 1 9:10

But I don't get stumped often I just don't think I have anything else for you. That pretty much was the trunk slammer. Okay, cool, nice chatting with you.

Speaker 2 9:22

Insert four-part harmony here exactly, and they were all you know.

Speaker 1 9:28

They were maybe 60 and older, so it would be creepy if they were like in their 20s.

Speaker 2 9:33

Right.

Speaker 1 9:34

I mean, it just would be.

Speaker 2 9:35

So I was like oh, I want to know if they do it full time or not. That's, Is this just a passion project?

Speaker 1 9:43

As a gig.

Speaker 2 9:44

It's got to be right.

Speaker 1 9:45

There can't be much of a TikTok audience for that.

Speaker 2 9:49

You never know. No, it's true. Some of the things that I see on there.

Speaker 1 9:53

Holka Maybe.

Speaker 2 9:55

That's true.

Speaker 1 9:55

Barbershop? Probably not. I don't know. I think there's some mileage with the barbershop quartet thing. I know right, there's something there.

Speaker 2 10:03

And they made up a little song about grants management that they made them sing. Oh, so that was even better. So there was a hook, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 10:19

And they sang Sweet Caroline, because of course it just sounds like a bad movie. It just does, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 10:25

And we're in that huge ballroom at the Washington Hilton. They're like this is the same ballroom that the Correspondence Dinner is in, Correct, and now Barbershop Corsair.

Speaker 1 10:37

You know I used to go to that Really.

Speaker 2 10:39

The.

Correspondence Dinner Memories

Speaker 1 10:39

Correspondence Dinner quite a bit.

Speaker 2 10:40

Oh, how cool. I would love to go to that.

Speaker 1 10:41

There was a recent episode of the podcast where I talked a little bit about it. It was such a great kind of annual thing.

Speaker 1 10:47

Mm-hmm annual thing and, uh, you know, downstairs are all the salon rooms and upstairs is the main foyer and it's black tie and you go through the magnetometers and then you go into the room. Well, I can't. This is must have been like in the late 90s and myself and two other colleagues were half in the bag early as as one is at those things, and Richard Dreyfuss walks kind of towards us and we're camera guys, we don't give a fuck, right, that's the magic.

Speaker 1 11:22

It's like we're kind of disarming and so he starts chatting with us for a couple minutes. Oh, what are you boys doing? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And my one friend who was hammered, just doesn't even break stride and goes hey, you're that guy from that movie with the with the really big fish, and we get the, the tip of the the drey laugh right, yes, that cackle. And then he literally was like mid-step walking away from us while he was laughing. Oh my gosh, such a funny memory.

Speaker 1 11:59

That is really funny. That really was the specialness of that evening. Was that at the time certainly not now? Right At the time, these celebrities were enamored with journalism and politics and they come here and it was a place for them to kind of not be the center of attention? Yeah, and really just kind of rub elbows and just kind of relax and and be a washingtonian for the night or whatever yeah um, but yeah, that doesn't exist anymore no, not not the same.

Speaker 2 12:30

Not the same, uh, atmosphere for sure this is my first time in the city, so really yeah I'm. I was like I wish it was at a different time, but I'll take it, I'll take what I can get.

Speaker 1 12:42

there's still some cool spots, spots to go to. Where have you been or where did you?

Speaker 2 12:47

I really have been nowhere. I've been in that hotel the whole time so far, so I'm gonna go take a bus tour here and see some sights.

Speaker 1 12:56

That's a good way to get it done quickly, just like the Cliff Notes, and then if you can get off and just shmai around, that's pretty, pretty awesome too. But I think, if it's your first time doing it.

Speaker 2 13:06

That's perfectly cool right, we love road trips, so we're gonna eventually do a big east coast road trip that's the nice thing about illinois is you can drive anywhere you want if you don't mind being in the car for a long time. Right, but we did. We did the West Coast in 2021. So two weeks in the car and then we drove when we moved across the middle. So we just have the Southwest and the Southeast and the East Coast to do.

Speaker 1 13:38

I used to love doing road trips too. I still do to a certain extent.

Speaker 2 13:42

They're very fun.

Speaker 1 13:43

I love getting to see them, as long as you get off the highways, right?

Speaker 2 13:45

Yes.

Speaker 1 13:46

Take the slow road, pump the brakes, find little small towns, find a little mom and pop diner or something like that, and really kind of engage and find that you know world's largest frying pan or exactly whatever it is we're supposed to be finding. It looks like you're getting off at archives. Is that correct?

Road Trip Dreams and DC Plans

Speaker 2 14:06

uh, yeah okay yeah, that's where I think the bus stop is, they said cool.

Speaker 1 14:13

Um, I still can't believe. It's seven o'clock and it's broad daylight now I know how exciting is that it is and I I love it, but at the same time it has crushed my sleep rhythm oh the. The past couple of days like I fell asleep like at 4 o'clock and woke up at like 7. I'm like whoa, that's not supposed to happen.

Speaker 2 14:33

Yes.

Speaker 1 14:33

Apparently it does now.

Speaker 2 14:37

Yes, traveling always kills my sleep routine. I'm just yeah. I'll get back on it when I get home, yeah.

Speaker 1 14:45

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 14:48

How long are you in town for? Uh, till saturday. Oh cool, so you got some time, yeah you got some time they keep us. They really want us to get all the info. They start us at seven and they keep us till 5 15. Why?

Speaker 1 14:59

would you want to leave with the quartet and all Exactly.

Speaker 2 15:03

Cool, awesome, thank you.

Speaker 1 15:06

Enjoy your stay.

Speaker 2 15:08

I will. It was lovely chatting with you. It was nice to meet you, absolutely. Oh, we'll see. Okay, there we go. I was in a Tesla after the airport and I couldn't get out.

Speaker 1 15:15

Boo Tesla. Thank you for listening to this episode of Rideshare Road Talk. If you've enjoyed what you've heard, we'd love for you to review the podcast on your favorite listening platform, like Apple or Spotify. Your support helps us so much, and don't forget to reach out on Instagram with your feedback or topic suggestions. Until next time, let's drive.