AC/DC Concert Road trip #1

Part 1 of 2 as Ritchie and I travel to North Carolina to see AC/DC and the experiences we had along the way.

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SPEAKER_02 0:04

No, that's not the one I wanted. That's not the one I wanted. No, not that one either. All right. Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to the next episode of The Losing Ticket with your host, Matthew Christian Stoltman. Um, I have taken a little break. I don't know why. It wasn't like I was busy doing anything specifically, but I just needed a pause. I needed to r to reflect on on the first uh what what do we have? Seven episodes, I think, six or seven episodes. And I must admit, it to me at least, it has gone um splendidly. So um I did run into some technical difficulties at the beginning of the Vox. I my intro song is uh is a song from little Jimmy Dickens. He's like a country singer from back in the fifties. And I save it onto this program and the program deleted all my messages. So I had to kind of record it off of a previous podcast. So hopefully it sounds fine. I again I don't edit this, I don't even really listen to it Um genuinely before I post it. I just post it with all the fuck-ups and all the other problems. So if it works, great, and if it doesn't, well then I guess next week we'll have to revisit and see what is going on. Uh this week on the Losing Ticket podcast, starring only unfortunately one me, um we are going to go down a very recent memory, which is a trip that Richard and I went to Charlotte, North Carolina to see one of the greatest bands of all time. Whether you agree or disagree, it's irrelevant, and that is ACDC. Um they're at the tail end of their careers, if not at the very tail tip of the tail. And I wanted to see them one more time. Uh so we did that, and then we're going to uh break it up, and I'm going to do what I have done maybe oh gosh. I am now officially 54 years old, sadly. So I have probably been doing this in one form or the other for the last 30 years. Only to the people, and really only a couple people in this in this in this world that I would give this to, and that is the Noble slash Shinouske uh family rating system. You know, we we we talk about college football, they do rankings and things like that. Well, I decided to do that with um one of the families that was is absolutely closest to my heart. I've known them since uh the third, no fourth grade. So what is that, like nine years old, eight, nine years old? I have known members of this family. I have known members of this family before Richie was even born. So I basically have been part of the Noblet family longer than Richie has. And I don't give a fuck if I'm using your name. Nobody's listening. I got like I got like a hundred listens over the course of the last seven postings. I got a group of guys or girls, I don't know, uh in Oregon. So I wanted to do a special shout out if you're listening from Oregon. Uh I got some outside of DC, I believe, uh, who I don't know. So welcome and thank you very, very much. Uh and then I have some randoms and like in uh in Europe. I had one from Turkey, one in Norway, and one in what was the other I gotta look this up. I forgot what the other country was. Yeah, I use this um I use this program called Buzz Sprout to post all of my stuff, and it gives me like statistics, which is kind of cool. Yeah, I had three European Oh, whoa! I got three Asians! I got three Asians, and it's the Japanese. Ow, yo, I love you guys. I don't like Mitsubishi, they can go fuck themselves, but everything else, Jap Japan, I like. I'm I'm all good with the Japanese. So awesome, awesome. I got three listens in the Japanese. Perfecto. I hope it translates. I don't know if uh maybe I gotta get Jerry on that. Jerry knows um Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese. There is differences. Uh, and he he knows a little bit of Indian. He's working on that right now with his Rosetta Stone. If you don't know, Jerry is a truck driver and all he does is learn new languages. I believe he's on he's on like number eight or seven. Unfortunately, English has not been on that list yet, so Jerry still has to learn the English language, but he is doing very well in Asia. So congrats to Jerry and let's get going on the translation. Holy shit. Oh, yeah. So let me go through this. I'm gonna go through this. All right, so United States, obviously a big big one. Uh, Japan has three, Norway, Denmark, and Turkey. And then in the United States, majority of them are from Buffalo, New York. I mean, it makes sense, right? Ashburn, Virginia, which is outside of DC, has 16. Washington, D.C. has got seven. Uh, Boardman, Oregon's got four. Richmond, Virginia's got four. Newport News, which probably has family, is two. Uh Wilmington, North Carolina. I got some real randoms in here, and I'm liking it. I'm liking it. Because you want to know something. Today's world is too fucking serious. There's too many wack-a-doos out there. If you don't know me, or if you haven't listened to any of my previous uh podcasts, I I'm actually not far right. I really am not. I am really more right or right of center, but because of the far left being so fucking wacky, I am now far right. And I never really was. To me, I I'm an independent. I'm not Republican or Democrat. And I know there's a guy out there who's rolling his eyes right now. Oh, you gotta shit or get off the pot. Fuck you. Fuck you. I ain't fucking picking sides because to me, you're both equally worthless. And I would assume a vast silent majority of the United States is that way, and that's probably why Trump got elected. Do I like Trump? Not necessarily. Do I hate him? No. I'm better than a fucking drooling moron that we had before, and then that bitch who can't even fucking talk. So I'm I'm curious what what'll happen. I don't like Trump, but I don't like the other ones. They were even worse. I took the lesser of the two evils, maybe. I don't know. But I don't give a fuck either way. I I vote for who I want. And you guys should vote for who you want. But my point is this you don't like what I say, you don't like what I cover. I don't give a fuck. I mean, listen, I'll take your I'll take your statistic, I'll take your your listen. But I have been vilified and made uh public enemy number one on Facebook, which unfortunately I have to hop on there to advertise this. Um and Instagram, I'm having a couple battles right now. So I'm really not good with social media, but I don't give a shit. I really don't. Um, so here I will start and we'll uh let's see. I just wasted eight minutes of your time talking about that bullshit. So let's uh let's get going. So ACDC. So for those of you who might not know, uh ACDC is a rock and roll band from Australia, and this would have been this was because it's in the past, the third time that I saw ACDC Live. Now, the first time that I saw ACDC live was with a very, very close friend of mine named Jason. And back in like early 2000s, like 2002 or 3, I think, I don't even remember, um, SARS, which I think was like a form of COVID, but SARS infected Toronto, Ontario. Like it shut the city down. All right. And so the Rolling Stones, who you used to uh practice, they would do their like they would they would prep for their North American tours outside of Toronto as a like a kind of like a way of saying thank you and to kind of get people back into the city, they did this big benefit concert. It was called SARS Fest, and it was absolutely amazing. So Jason and I went, and we went for like eight, I think it was eighteen dollars was the ticket. We got there at 4 30 in the morning. Um, and we were there was oh ended up being over 600,000 people at this concert, and we were so close to the stage, like we could see the sweat on their faces. Like we were right fucking there. Nobody was like, there was maybe like three like blankets full, like the everybody laid down on blankets and shit. We were like right there. We were right fucking there. And um, 18 bucks. We got there around 430, and it was like 98 degrees with not a cloud in the sky. Uh, it was it was so tough. Um it was very, very tough to be out there in that in that heat. But we got to see Rush, we got to see The Flaming Lips, who I never knew who they were. They were like this artsy band from Oklahoma, but they were really cool, and they do have some songs I like. We got to see the um the guess who, we got to see uh ACDC, we got to see uh Rolling Stones, and then there was like comedians that would come out in between where they're setting up the bands. Oh, Justin Timberlake was there, which I didn't know who he was at the time. I think he was like in that what's he in InSync or Backstreet Boys, he was in one of those bands, but I think he was trying to be like his own guy. But they were I that kind of pissed me off. Now I don't give a shit about Justin Timberlake, but like this guy came to help your city out, and these people are throwing like water bottles at him. And I always thought that was kind of like, dude, he's trying to fucking help you out, bring more people to this fucking event that's all going to like your your community, I guess, and you're gonna sit there and throw water bottles at him. So go fuck yourself. But anyway, he was there, and then in between the fucking acts, they would have like they had it was um um not John, obviously, because he's dead, but it was like what is his brother, Bill? The other Belushi, you know, the other Belushi and uh Dan Aykroyd and John Goodman came out and they did like a blues brother thing. Um Marine O'Hara, you don't probably know her by name, but she's like in a bunch of movies, she's like in Home Alone and some other stuff. She came out and did like a comedy just set with Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, and then Jim Carrey was there, and I forgot somebody else was there, another Canadian guy. But um, it was really fun, it was like it was a good moment, but ACDC was like, so every band went out, even like oh, the bare naked ladies who I fucking can't stand, they were there. I was hoping the Tragically Hip. I do like the Tragically Hip. They were not there, they were doing something else, which whatever. I don't give a shit, but whatever, they weren't there, and there were some other bands. Some other bands, I just forgot. I gotta look that up. But um every band did like maybe like 45 minutes. So it was like, and it was real small, uh small stage set up, like I think they were setting up right away, like it was like boom, boom, boom, and it was like a 15-minute gap between between bands until until ACDC and the Stones came on. And ACDC, like I said, every band was doing like maybe 45 minutes at the most. And ACDC did two hours, and they fucking rocked, they were fucking amazing. And like, so then when the Stones came on, everybody was so happy because of the Stones, because of who they are, but like the fucking ACDC like stole the show, and then they end up having some of the people come back out like to do like a duets or play guitar, I think uh Getty Lee played bass on something, whatever. I that's all good, but like ACDC just fucking rocked the whole fucking show. Um, that was my first live experience with ACDC. The second one was I think it's called Black Ice Tour, and it came to Buffalo and I went with Richie, and this was not our first quote unquote date because that was Ozzy and Rob Zombie, but he was still young, and I don't know if we were hanging out yet or were just about to start hanging out because he and I were big into the same sports and um and music, and then it just snowballed into that. And we'll get into that when I do the Noblet Chinowski family ranking system, so I'll talk about some of the other members of that family, but um we saw the Black Ice Tour, and that was amazing. That was when I I mean obviously it's a cliche song, it's played everywhere, but I love Whole Lot of Rosie, and in this version of Whole Lot of Rosie and the Black Ice Tour, they had this like huge fucking locomotive. Like it was just like it was a literally like one of those old school ones, like the the black steam steam-powered ones, right? And then as they're playing, like da-da-da-da-da-da-da, um out comes this fucking inflatable huge Rosie. Oh my god, it was the best fucking she had the biggest titties and big fat ass and and huge get huge belly. Oh, it was the greatest thing in the world. Greatest fucking thing in the world. Awesome concert. So when they they announced that they were gonna do a North American tour this summer, um, they were going to Columbus, Ohio, but that was like during the week. They were doing Philadelphia, and I think that was I think that's like tonight, if I remember correctly, but that was like during the week this week. It was like all no real Friday night or Saturday night concerts, but Charlotte was. So we um so decided to do the Charlotte tour. So we left on Friday, um, Friday morning, and what was great is leading up to this, um, I guess to parlay a little bit of the whole WrestleMania Narnia, I'm like leading up how I'm gonna fucking do a ton of fucking drugs and eat pizza, so I puke all over the place. And Richie really wasn't biting, but I I know, I know, I know there was just a little bit of doubt in his mind about about it, and he probably would have stolen my car keys and just drove back to the hotel and left me for dead. I probably would have agreed to that, but I didn't get that bad. At least I don't think I did, at least not towards the end of the concert. So I guess I recovered well, but we'll get to that later. Um I I would talk about how I was and I did. I did like a six or seven hour set list. I put some real fucking thought into it, and it's all metal, and it's punk, and it's the base songs that I really like, but I thought about I know I know Richie well enough. So I put some of his music in there and shit like that, and he's all like, I ain't gonna he's such a fucking cocksucker. He really fucking is. He's such a fucking asshole. Richie is one of these fucking people where like I I like albums, I like records, I like vinyl. Alright. But apparently I'm a snoot. I'm a fucking snooty guy. Oh, it sounds so much better on the records and hey gee hoo-hee, and he just fucking like he thinks he's fucking getting under my skin. He's not because I what what when Richie talks, all I hear is like the adults from fucking the peanuts cartoon. Wah womp womp womp womp womp. I it it don't bother me at all. If anything, it makes me want to do more of it, right? Jerry's getting there, just so you know. Jerry's Gregory is they want to they want to cause a uh a civil war between Gregory and I will never happen. I don't I though, however, want to get a civil war between Gregory and Richie because I do not like that alliance. I do not like that alliance. That's like Iran and Russia right there. It's just too tight, too tight for my liking. Um but but I put a lot of thought into this damn set list, and then so he started getting kind of nasty. He was kind of being a little you know, he might be Dick Man the Third, but he was turning into Dick the Man the Third. You know what I'm saying? So I told him I was gonna play Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters from Al John like the entire way. Which believe me, again, Richie's a snoot. He took like two or three guitar lessons, so he thinks he's like a music musician, like a savant on everything, right? Oh, he missed the bridge there and he missed this there. Fuck you, man. Fuck you. Seriously. I wanted to kick him in the teeth at least a half a dozen times on this trip. So I love my vinyl, but I wanted to listen to a set list. He's like, why don't you just play the album and listen to it the way it was meant to be? How fucking ironically funny is that? I like listening to albums, which you don't get to skip all around. He talks all about the MP3s and how great they are, and yet I want to listen to the whole album. And yet on this trip, which I can't bring a record player, sorry, Rich, might I might have a Silverado, but it ain't that you know high-tech. Don't have a fucking album or record player in the fucking truck. So I have the fucking set list on Amazon Prime. Seven hours of very good music, rock and roll, stones, uh, the Who, uh Metallica, Maiden, Priest, ACDC, not a ton, because we're listening, we're going to see him. I don't want to like fucking listen to all that shit. Uh just and then like some of my punk bands that I love. Anyway, so he's all got his panties and a bunch. And I'm like, we're gonna listen to fucking Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters all the way there. So as I'm going to get him, and this is like Friday at like nine o'clock. Oh, and this is okay. There's an here's another fucking thing. Now he is gonna be here to answer the charges at some point in time, but not today. So I have the fucking mic. Alright. This motherfucker is always on my ass about being late or or causing any kind of inconvenience in this guy's fucking life. This guy has everything hand to him on a silver platter. He barely went to school, he gets his fucking certification. He was there for like six weeks. Like the guy fucking just he always lands on his feet. He's the kind of guy that could play football in like a fucking field of mud and walk off the game without fucking having any mud on his sneakers or or his clothes or anywhere. This guy is just one of those, like, he's always on the fringes criticizing, but he never gets in the fucking right into the fucking battle. You know what I'm saying? We all know one, we all have somebody like that in our lives. Well, that's that's Richie to me. All right. He's a jobber. He's a he's one of those wrestlers that comes out just to get his ass beat by someone like me, aka The Rock, or Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Undertaker, you know, and he's like Bubba K. You know, he's nobody. So Friday, I'm gonna go pick him up. We're gonna we could take all our time in the world Friday. We don't have to worry about getting there for the concert because the concert's Saturday night. And he's like, Yeah, pick me up. And then fucking like the day of that I'm picking him up. Oh, wait a minute. I gotta go to the DMV. The day that we're gonna leave, he has to go to the DMV. So he goes to the DMV, because now in Erie County, at least, you can make an appointment, right? He has the wrong fucking day. He has the wrong fucking day. So he's now in the fucking pen with all the other schleps who don't have the foresight to to make a fucking appointment. He just locks out. He locks out, and he gets somebody that's that probably has he she probably had empathy for him because she probably looked at him, you know, saw this guy who kind of looks like an oopaloompa with an extremely large nose, and said, you know what, I'm gonna have mercy on this guy. Like if we're at a bar, I'd probably mercy fuck him. But since we're at the DMV, I'll make sure I get his license done. So he gets out of there in a respectable amount of time. It doesn't really, it doesn't hinder my my plans on when we leave, but he did put like a kink in the process because again, I like to mentally prepare. I like to have everything spread out. Like when I go to bed at night, my clothes are laid out perfectly. I everything is all set. So when I get up, I just slide right into my clothes, sit on the couch, and watch cartoons all day. I know exactly what I'm gonna fucking do, right? Everything is perfect, not rich. He just flies by the seat of his pants all the time. But he was infringing on my time now, and that is unacceptable. That is unacceptable. So I'm on my way to get on 9 o'clock, and sure as shit, I see his parents on the front yard, and I think his mom was uh his mom was watering the flowers or something like that. So Richie knows I'm kind of there because I think I voxed them or I uh text them. So what do I do? I play Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters really fucking loud. And I go and I love his parents. So I go out to talk to his parents, and I'm blaring this music from my truck with all the windows down, and and Richie comes out and he's all hurgin and puffing and embarrassed, and he brings he's this motherfucker's going away. Oh my god. Oh There's so much about this guy. I gotta really fucking I gotta lay it all out. Because he's gonna tear me a new ass. I know he will. So I gotta fucking tear him a new ass first. We are going. This is two guys. Two guys, mind you. Okay? Two guys that are going on a 48-hour road trip. This motherfucker brings like three suitcases, a fucking duffel bag, a fucking makeup kit for his hair products. And it's like so as he's like coming out, he's like huffing and puffing because he's hearing this song. And I'm gonna play a little bit of it. And I guess I can hide it in this podcast because they're not gonna find this. So here it is. If you don't know the song, this is Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters by Elton John.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

This is God and Country.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Here we go, folks. Alright, so if he goes after me for royalties, then so be it. He can get in line with everybody else that wants some money out of me. But that was Mona Leas as a matter. Do I like that song? No. I mean, do I hate Elton John? No. I I like rock. There's some songs from Elton John I like. I had no problem with that. I'm not closed-minded like Richie. Richie's like, if it isn't death metal, it isn't metal, it isn't music. Whatever, dude. Whatever. You know, your favorite band in the world is Metallica, who's about as most mainstream as they come, but you're uh one of those hootie-tooties who thinks that you found Metallica from like a bargain bin at a fucking used record store. Give me a break. Anyway, so we uh I'm and and Dickman and Helen are laughing because they know I'm doing this to him. And he went, let's go, let's go. He did get nasty on this trap. And when we are gonna talk about this later in this box or in this in this podcast. Oh, he got so nasty. He got so mean to me. So very mean. Ritchie could be a very mean person. Very mean. Now I know why Rachel broke up with him. That's all I gotta say. But so we get in the car and he's ready. Oh yeah, another oh, this is another thing. This motherfucker brings like six six packs of 24-ounce Dr. Pepper bottles. Like, from what I I I I don't I I don't have the way of showing pictures yet. I'm gonna do this on YouTube eventually. I am gonna like have pictures and shit like that to corroborate what I'm talking about. That's coming probably in like an August or September. Right now it's just obviously audio. But this motherfucker brings like literally like six six packs of 24 ounce bottles of Diet Dr. Pepper. What are you I don't understand this? And then we find out that in his in one of his the spare rooms in the house, he literally has a wall of Diet Dr. Pepper. Like literally, like, so there's a supermarket in the Western New York that most of you know if you're from here, it's called Topps. Alright. It's probably like your Kroger's or your Save a lot, not Save a lot, um I don't know. Whatever. I don't care if you don't know it or not, but it's not a fancy, it's not fancy. It's not like one of your like yuppie posh places, like a Wegmans and shit like that. But you can get you can get food that doesn't say Wegmans on it. That's what I licked tops, right? But they have from time to time these sales where you buy four or buy two get four free. Oh my god, Richie, that's like porn to Rich. When he opens up that newspaper like he did when he was when he would open up that that magazine of black jugs when he was like an eight when he was 18 years old, and instead of seeing those big pair of black titties, he sees the buy two get for free Diet Dr. Peppers, and the guy fucking just creams in his pants, and he literally runs to the store and buys out all the Diet Dr. Pepper. He's got a fucking problem. If Dr. Pepper was crack, we would have lost Richie fucking years ago. Years ago. Oh my god. Talking about a fucking problem. Holy shit. I I didn't know if I had enough storage space in my truck for all this fucking Diet Dr. Pepper. But we get in the car and we take off and we went, we were going from Buffalo to Erie, Pennsylvania. Erie, Pennsylvania, we took the 79, I think it was. Greg and Jerry are truck drivers, they know by heart. But we took the three-way from Erie, Pennsylvania, around Pittsburgh, through Washington, Pennsylvania, into West Virginia. I think it was like Morgantown area. And then we do this, like, I think it's like Route 19, which you it goes like it sidesteps Charleston, West Virginia. It saves you like an hour, hour and a half, I believe. Um, but there was a lot of construction going on. And then from there you go into like Bluefield and Beckley, go through a little bit of Virginia, the mountains, and then down through to Charlotte, where we stayed was a town called Statesville, which is north of Charlotte by about 40 minutes. Um, so we get on the throughway, and everything's fine. And I'm not speeding, I'm like going like 70. And um Richie and I are kind of like feeling each other out at this point in time. He doesn't know how crazy I'm gonna be just yet. And so we're like we're in a good mood. We're in a good place. As a as a relationship goes, we're in a very good place at that point in time. And um Richie does um fasting, he's very good at it. I like to try it, I'd like to do it, and I try as much as I can, but my sugar always seems to get in the fucking way. But either, either way, so Richie, I I want to abide by Richie's like his lifestyle, right? I'm not gonna sit there and go, let's go get a double pizza, a double cheese pizza, and eat it on the way. I'm not gonna I'm not even offered it, let alone did it. So we go through New York with relatively little problems, no rain. I don't even remember seeing a tr uh a cop. I use that program WAZ or Waze, I don't know how you guys say it, where it shows like the cops and construction and if there's any kind of like um uh debris or something in the road, it'll give you like a warning. And then all the cars have like little like ghost heads, so you kind of can see where people are. And I think the objective of it is like for people that have like compulsive disorder. My I do have that, but not when it comes to Waz. Like you can if you like verify that there's a cop, like say you see a cop, you can you mark it on this computer program on your on your GPS, and then everybody around uh this little cop face will appear, and they'll know cops like there, all right, to prevent you from getting a speed ticket, or construction, or or some car on the side of the road, you know, there's there's like there's like 30 different things. So Richie got it was like a little child, he got such a kick out of being able to press the button, like, is there a cop there? Oh, here it is, and he's like hitting it and he's jumping up on his fucking seat. He did a very good job at it, though, I must admit. He did a very good job. And I will give I'm gonna give Richie a little kudos here, so don't let it get to your fucking head. Um, he did say if you want me to drive, I'll drive. But I don't have a problem. That was a little long, it was like nine hours. That was a little long, that was like probably the most I could do. But for some reason, I felt that the trip was going by just fine. And if I would have sat in in the passenger seat, I think I would have fell asleep. And I wouldn't have done that to Richie, that would have been rude. And I'm not if anything I am, I'm not rude. I'm not a very rude person. So I um so I I draw, I drove, I drove all the way there, and we stopped for gas somewhere. Like I like loves. I don't know if for those of you that might drive on the throughway, I'm partial to loves. It has clean bathrooms and um it's it's more than enough pumps. Uh, some people like flying J and Pilot. I think Gregory likes that. He's a truck driver, so maybe there's differences when it comes to truck drivers. I know he likes hanging out in like the shower stalls, so maybe that's why he likes um Flying J and Pilot. I think they're like the same company, I believe. I think their owner owns the Browns, if I remember correctly. Um, but you know, we stop from time to time, and and I'm gonna say this other than Wawa, Wawa has is the best place gas station for if you wanted to get something to eat. But the second best, in my personal opinion, is a place that's in like western and southern, well, really just eastern Pennsylvania, and that's rudders. They have really good breakfasts. They have like the sausage link that they wrap in like uh uh like a pancake or something, and it's like maple f oh it's so fucking good. But they didn't have those in east in western Pennsylvania. They had more sheets and shit like that. But anyway, enough about that. So we would stop at Love's and get gas, and Richie was very kind and nice, and you know, we'd we you know we'd we'd what do you want? Do you want anything? Whatever. I got I think I got if I remember correctly, I got some sausage, like uh not sausage, but like um beef sticks, and I got one that was so fucking hot that it like burned my mouth, which I think gave a chuckle to Richie. But the worst thing was this was at lunchtime, he got like a chicken sandwich or something at shh at at Love's, and I got these two chicken tacos and I bit into it and I had to spit it out. It was so gross, and then I I I didn't throw out the wrapper out of my truck, but I took the food because it stunk and I threw it out because I figured an animal ate it, threw it right out of the car. Richie found it hilarious, and I bought two, mind you. So Richie wanted to know what it was like, and I told him there was no cheese in there, and there was no cheese in there. But it was like chicken breast, which would have been good if it wasn't covered in a sauce that tastes like crap. And Richie sure as shit did the he did that as well. He he took it and he threw it out. I'm gonna go take a side a tie aside a side story here. A Matt Stoltman moment in time that unfortunately my wife was regrettably in front of when I happened to happen. So my youngest son once played for football for St. Lawrence University, which is like up in Canton, New York, and it was about a four-hour drive, and we got to like Watertown, New York. This is a side story now, don't let me lose you now. And we went to Kentucky Fried Chicken, and we were starving. So we got to Kentucky Fried Chicken, we had like another hour to get there, and it was like a two-lane road, and it was 55, but like it was such a congenital, and trucks were always there, it was always a fucking pain in the ass. I hated it. It wasn't a highway, it was like a fast road. And this fucking bitch is driving in front of me, going maybe 40, 35, 40 miles an hour in 55, mind you, when nobody's really going 55. I mean, come on now. This is America, right? We we go fast in this country. This fucking bitch is going like 35, 40 miles an hour, and I I couldn't tell, I was like losing my shit. And I had a mouthful of I had a mouthful of fucking biscuit, and I think I had some chicken in my mouth, and I'm screaming at this mouthful of food, and the lady goes to make a left-hand turn, and I pull up on the curb on the on the shoulder, and I roll down my window, and I'm like, you and I and I I take the food and I spit it out of my hand, uh out of my mouth into my hand. So I have a handful of like basically eaten half-eaten biscuit and chicken, and I'm like, you fucking bitch. And as I'm saying it, like, food's flying out of my mouth, and I take my hand and I whip the food across her windshield, and it literally was like the most perfect splatter right across her windshield. And she probably had no clue what was going on. Michelle was absolutely horrified. But that's kind of like what we did when we when we bit these chicken sandwiches or these chicken tacos. It wasn't that somebody was pissing us off, but it was like it was so bad we had to get them out of our mouths right away. You know what I'm saying? So you do what you gotta do. I mean, food's not gonna like pollute the fucking earth. You know, food's gonna either get eaten by the wild animals or it'll just decompose. Kind of like, you know, anything organic, like bodies and things like that. So so our first of attempt, or at least my first attempt, at having something to eat was absolutely horrible. A fucking uh fucking beef stick that basically burnt out my butthole, and then chicken that tasted like fucking shit. And that was fine, it was good. Like I I might have had something, and I think my I don't know if my sugar, oh yeah, we were very uh keen on my sugars because my sugars have been going low lately, and they still are. I've been having attacks all night. Um, so it was like toggling between like say 90 and a 70, and then it would get closer to 60s, and I would have something. I don't know. I had something to keep it going. But I definitely I know Richie was concerned about it in two ways. One, because he's a good person, he really is at the end of the day. He's a good person. But second, because he doesn't want like us to like go off the side of the road into a ditch, which I mean that would have made the trip that much better, right? I mean, it would have been something to talk about, it would have been something to talk about, just saying. Um, so we made it through Pittsburgh without any problems and through Washington, Pennsylvania, got into West Virginia, and I I think we're gonna stop when we because Richie's got a very weak bladder, mind you. Richie's got a really fucking weak bladder. The guy pisses more than a fucking uh like than a little mouse. The fucking guy's gotta pee every six miles. Totally fucking annoying. Hey, I gotta go pee if you want if you need gas. I go Rich, we literally filled up six miles ago. Yeah, I know, but it if you need gas, just do it, please, because I need to go pee-pee. And it's like, oh Christ, it's like I brought my fucking two-year-old on this trip, and I don't have a two-year-old. And we go, oh yeah, we're going through West Virginia, and we're looking at some of the restaurants and some of the little hick towns, which I like. I must admit, I like I like CD, I like creepy, I like shit that just makes me want to giggle. And there was one, I thought he said, there's this place I he I thought he said Tutor's Biscuit World. And I was gonna stop there and get a hat or a shirt. I thought that would have been a crate to see to own something that said tutors on it, but I wasn't listening, and it it was Tutors, like T-U-D-O-R-S. I'm like, motherfucker, it's not funny. But I was laughing for like 30 miles thinking how great it would be to get a shirt that said tutors on it. And so we made it through West Virginia. Oh, there was a lot of fucking construction West Virginia. Everybody and their grandmother was fucking fixing a bridge, or oh, then we went to I call it Main Street USA. It's when you're driving on a fucking highway, and out of nowhere, there's like every store known to mankind is within like a three-mile fucking window, and so you got light, light, light, light. There's one in Shimokin Dam in Pennsylvania, and there's definitely one on Route 19 in West Virginia, and I'm sure they're all over the country. But my god, it took us like 20 minutes to go like two miles when before it would take us 20 minutes to go 30 miles. You know what I'm saying? It was like, oh, it was such a fucking pain in the ass. So, but we made it through that, and then we get um through we'll probably fill up again, and I don't think I want anything. I think I was like not in a bad mood, but like I just didn't want shit. Got gas, and then we got into Virginia, and I don't know for those of you that haven't gone on, I think it's the 79 or the 77, I don't know what it is, but it goes from like Charlestown, West Virginia, down through Charlotte. But you catch it where we caught it from there was like in Beckley, West Virginia, I believe, or or Bluefield, one of those two. And then when you get into that part of Virginia, you get science for Bristol, Tennessee, because Tennessee is like literally like probably 10 miles to the west. So it's like four states are all right there, which is kind of cool. But what Richie liked, and what I remembered from back in the 90s going down to Fort Stewart in Savannah, was the tunnels because you literally go under mountains. And I always said when you're when you're heading south, that second tunnel, then you're like in the south. And people might in Virginia might be like, well, we're the south. Yeah, you're like a grave south, you're really not like the the Dixie South. And so when you get off that out of that second tunnel, that's to me when you're in the south. Like you're basically in North Carolina, and the heat the what the weather is warmer. It's it's it's always different. Loved it. I always loved that transition. And Richie would like going in the tunnel. He was excited, like again, like a little fucking two-year-old who was you know clapping his hands and taking pictures of the fucking concrete wall of the tunnel. Like, I'm like, dude, it's there's nothing to see here. But Richie, like a like a fucking Japanese guy, taking fucking pictures every 15 feet. He must do scrapbooking. Because the only thing I can think of is you just scrapbooking. Because there's no reason why all these things should be taken pictures of. Ridiculous. So we get through North Carolina, and we had like not long to go for for the hotel. So we get to Statesville, and um the hotel's okay. And Richie's first thing to do is, oh, I want to go look at the pool. Now, mind you, there is like a fucking tribe in the pool right now. And there must have been a quarter inch of oil on the top of the water. You could see the sheen. You could see that like that that miscolored like chemical sheen, like you do, like if it rains in a parking lot and you see like a little pond puddle, and you see like where the ana freeze and the oil kind of like floats on top of that water and it gives it like a rainbow shine. That's what you saw on top of the pool. And Richie was all about it. I'm like, I I couldn't even like I couldn't even breathe the water in, it was so bad. So we we we went back to the room, we got ready, and we went out to eat. And who was who did get the Voxer of the weekend, who was the the star of the weekend, was Richie's AI. And I don't know which one he does. I don't know if he does chat GPT or or any of the other ones. There's so many now. But he goes, I want brisket. He went I told him I go get good brisket. I'm not gonna eat brisket. I I like barbecue chicken and stuff like that. I'm not a big I'm not big on the meat personally, unless it's like Friday night at the bowling alley, then I like the meat, if you know what I mean. Um so he asks his his uh his girlfriend, aka chat GPT, who, mind you, has a very seductive voice. Like you can change the voices of your of your AI. It could be like a guy or British girl or whatever. He's got like the seductress. It was like that who's that who's framing Roger Rabbit, you know the the rabbit that was like real sexual? That was like her voice, right? I'm like, dude, you got some problems. So he finds this place. Forgot the name of it. Son of a bitch. I'll I'll look it up because I gotta write them a good review. We went to random, totally random place. We get in there, and this I know her name was Katie, this little redhead. She was very cute, very nice. And shh, I got I got too much. What did I get as an appetizer? I got an appetizer, and I could barely finish appetizer, and then my chicken came. And I think I said I wanted to take time on it or something. No, no, I ended up bringing I think I ended up throwing some of that out. I couldn't finish it all. It was too much. And the but the place was really good. It was like the perfect end of a day. It was starting to rain, and we were gonna go to Walmart afterwards because Richie needed to get swimming trunks. Swimming trunks. This fucking guy, swimming trunks. So we we finish up now. Richie's gonna bring this up, but I actually forgot my credit card, so Katie runs out and gives me the credit card, and I do this little thing. Well, I'm not gonna I'll let Richie explain what I do. But I do this little thing, but I did it to her with my finger. And I told Richie, which makes Richie grossed out, so that put a smile on my face. And she told us there was a Buffalo Bills bar not far. So we drove down like Main Street Statesville, and you saw it, and there was like Bills shit everywhere. It was kind of cool, but we didn't stop in there because I mean we live in Buffalo. And we had to go to that fucking Walmart, and we went to the Walmart, and Richie literally took 20 minutes looking at looking at like they had a pair of blue sw uh swimming trunks, a pair of black swimming trunks, pair of red swimming trunks, ones with little logos on it, one with like fun little fucking doodads on it. This motherfucker is like you think that he's picking out his wedding fucking tuxedo. I'm literally looking at my watch, going, What are you doing? Like, just pick out a fucking pair. Pick out a fucking pair. I think I bought something there too. I think I bought a pair of shorts. I did buy a pair of shorts there. Just a word. I I I like if I can find a nice pair of blue shorts, I buy him. Then we go to the we go to the the the grocery store part of Walmart and Richie buys this big box, this big container of cheese balls. Like it's literally like five gallons of cheese balls. And I bought some Mountain Dew so that if I had any sugar attacks over the night, I would have something to because Mountain Dew and orange juice is really number one, but Mountain Dew does the trick too. And I'm not allowed to have it anymore. So when I have a low sugar attack and I can take one to help my sugar, it's like a win-win in a way. And I bought marshmallows because I like marshmallows. And Richie bought some other shit, I think. I don't know. But anyway, we went home. And then he, I don't even think he went to the fucking pool. I think we just went home and I was ready for bed. I mean, I drove nine hours and we went out to eat, which was fine. Great. It was a good meal. And then we went to Walmart because Richie needed to get swimming. And then we went back to the hotel. And I have these headphones. I have like beats headphones. So Richie, heaven forbid, I play any music and Richie's sleeping because he's a little bitch. He is a little fucking bitch, guys. I'm telling you this right now. This is gonna be a long, this is gonna be a long. I'm already at 45 minutes. You know what? I think I'm not I know I am gonna do I am gonna do uh that, but I'm gonna do that as a separate, as a separate podcast. But I'm gonna do it right after this one. So this is a twofer, folks. This is a twofer. So so I I'm sleeping and I'm watching like TikTok and I'm laughing. And I'm fucking out of nowhere, like I get a fucking pillow thrown at me, and I turn around, and Richie's got like these fucking crazy eyes, and he's pointing at me. He's like, shut the fuck up. I'm trying to sleep. You're fucking laughing, and I'm trying to sleep. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me, man? Like, are you fucking serious, man? And so apparently I snored all night. Well, again, I drove nine hours while Richie did nothing, just sat there with his thumb in his ass. Fucking nine hours driving. I did all the man shit, all the man work on fucking the during the day. And I here I am. I want to like relax and have a nice sleep. I slept like a baby, I must admit. I slept like a baby, but apparently I snorted and I made Richie upset. So Richie's up all pissed off. He's all fucking pissed off in the morning. And we got all day to kind of wait for this concert. And Richie goes, I'm gonna go work out. I'm gonna go in the treadmill and maybe jump in the pool. I'm like, that's fine. I didn't even know he left. Didn't even know he left. I'm still on on TikTok or whatever I'm doing. I think I took a shower, got ready for the day, and I thought it was getting Richie. Richie probably doesn't even know this. Richie did make a comment, but it didn't get under Richie's skin. I was hoping to. So I left the the I left the shower on scalding hot, and I shut the bathroom door, and I had it running for probably 10 minutes. 15 minutes, maybe even. And he comes in, or he texts me, he's like, I'm on my way up. I'm like, okay, I go, I have the shower running for you, so you have warm water. Thinking when he opens the door, he's gonna get punched in the face by the big steam steam ball. And he's like, Well, I'm just gonna take a quick shower. I'm like, oh yeah, I don't give a shit. Like, you know I'm not timing ya. So he gets home or he gets back to the room, and I'm like ready to I'm like kind of ready to go, but I'm I know he's gonna get ready, but I'm I'm good. And I hope I didn't fuck this up. No, I didn't fuck this up. No, yeah, this is good. So he opens up the that bathroom door and he doesn't even get phased by it. Like if I would open up that door and got fucking smacked with a fucking steam ball from a shower that's been like a 95 degrees for the last uh 30 minutes, I would have been like, what the fuck? This guy didn't even phase him. Maybe it's the Italian in him. I don't know. You know, the Sicilians are used to that heat, that warm, muggy heat. Not really sure. But he had to like wash the stink off him from the pool. And then he obviously went right from the this is this is the class that Richie is. He went from the treadmill and he sweats like a fucking pig. He went right from the treadmill, jumped in the pool. And then he came up to take a shower. Yeah, yes, ladies, he's a scumbag. He's a fucking scumbag. So again, he gets out, he's changed, I'm changed. This motherfucker's got clothes everywhere. This fucking guy is like the most messy. I his room must be a sty. He does I I lay my clothes out, I organize them. This fucking guy's got shit everywhere. So I go, what do we want to do? He's like, well, let's I'm not in the mood for breakfast. So he's like, why don't we go get barbecue? And I'm like, that's fine. I go, go get ourselves a really good um brisket or whatever you want. And I don't care. It really doesn't bother me about the chicken. It doesn't, it doesn't affect me, right? So we went down to Charlotte and we went to this restaurant. It was so good. They had this this cornbread that was served in like a griddle, and it had like a little piece of jalapeno in it, and then they gave you honey on the side, and then I got I got sh a pulled chicken and I got hush puppies, and Richie didn't like his hush puppies, so I took his hush puppies, and I had basically I had hush puppies, pulled chicken, and some of the cornbread, and Richie had like I was it hungriest man or hungrier man, it was something like that, but he had like three different meats, so he was really living it up. He we I was happy that he was happy, and I really was. I was really happy that like I was in a good mood. It was actually one of the perfect moments in time. It was like, you know, when you went when you when you think back and you go, man, what like that was a great moment in time. I think I I realized it was a great moment in time while I was experiencing it. And it really was. The food was great, the waiter was awesome, endless drinks. Richie obviously gets like a picture of fucking diet cola every time. Like, sure, we give free refills. Yeah, I know it, but I want a picture. That's that's that's Richard Noble, mind you. Alright. So we're full and we're like, we still had like some time. Oh no! Fox, yeah, fucked it up. We did not go to that place first, we went to the NASCAR Hall of Fame first. But I'm gonna I'll let him correct me. So now we're going to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. It's downtown Charlotte. I like NASCAR. I'm not like a huge, like I don't watch it weekly, but I like it. I mean, I like the old NASCAR, and I mean old, I mean like in the 80s and early 90s before Fox made it like everybody had to like NASCAR type of shit. So I like like Harry Gantt and Dale Earnhardt, and I hated Jeff Gordon, but I enjoyed hating Jeff Gordon. You know, I liked this that kind of shit. I like I liked um Kyle Petty, Richard Petty's son. I think he did like the mellow yellow car. He was one of my favorites too. And I like Tony Stewart, but I like the bad boys, and like Tony Stewart and Dal Earnhardt were the bad boys. But we went there and it was fantastic. If you guys are in Charlotte, whether you like NASCAR or not, I highly recommend going. Um, they had like when you walk in, they had like it was like uh a corner at one of the NASCAR races. So all these cars were like lined up like they were racing, but it went from like the very early stages of NASCAR before NASCAR, like when they were like moonshine runners and shit. So they were like souped up regular cars, and these were like the real fucking cars for these guys, and then it like went through like the generational changes and the way the cars changed throughout time. So you saw like Kyle Petty's, you know, very famous car from the 70s, and then you saw Earnhardt and then it had some of the modern ones and all that shit, and um, tons of memorabilia, tons of stuff, a lot of some interactive stuff that was really amazing, all the trophies, and then they had a simulator. So Richie and I um get in line for the simulator. We bought like this this plant. I could have got the military discount, and it would have come with one fucking ride, and it would have been like $25, and I should have got it. But the guy's like, Well, then you've if you get this one, it's ten dollars more, but you can go on as many rides as you want. And I'm like, I looked at him, he goes, Oh, might as well get that. So we got that. Fucking the line was forever, like it took you like an hour to get on once. Like, yeah, okay, I'm gonna go on six times this fucking maybe, maybe during the week uh when like school's in session, maybe you could do that multiple times, but on a Saturday in the summer, no fucking way. But we get in line, and and it's cool. So when you're waiting in line for this, for this simulator, you see all of these cars like they're behind this fence, like they're on a track, and people will get in, both the passenger side and the driver's side. What we realized was there's the each component or each compartment was its own um simulator, so you can have two people per car. And what you did was you can see on the TV screen the huge, huge jumbo tron, you can actually watch them racing because it's undone with that eye racing, which is like a video game, really, really like um graphically superior video game, mind you, but you can watch what they're doing, and so when somebody crashes, you see it on the TV, even though the car's not crashing per se, you know, on the floor, it's crashing on the screen. And it was some good, there was some good shit. So I'm like getting excited. I'm like, oh, this is gonna be fun. And so we were right off, we got like early stages for the when we finally got our turn. So we got to pick basically whatever car we wanted. So we picked this white car. I forgot who the what the logo was on it, but it was like in the far corner, and I knew it was gonna be hard for me to get in and out of this fucking NASCAR. So the reason why I picked it, I don't think Richie realized it, was so that I can kind of hide getting in and out. And it was. It was hard getting, it was not hard getting out, but it was hard getting in because the wheel or the seat was super close to the steering wheel. And Richie's like, well, just like every car, you just push the seat back, asshole. And I'm like, but I couldn't find the damn lever, so the worker came over and brought it back. So she f she brings it back, I'm able to get in. The door really doesn't shut, but it's all good. It shuts enough. And then there's like a piece of plywood or metal between where Richie's compartment is and mine is, and the screen is all immersive and and it has the gears. Like I was able to do manual, which I loved. I mean, I'm sure Richie did fucking automatic because he doesn't know how to drive a stick shift. And I was able to do stick shift, it was fucking awesome. And when the seat would rumble and and everything, so I'm where we're going, and I I'm I I crash. Like I I think I hit a corner too tight, so my car just started drifting. And as I'm drifting, I get fucking T-boned by Richie of all fucking people. So I'm pissed because I wanted to hit Richie. All I want to do is crash. All I want to do is fucking crash. So Richie T-bones me, and I'm able to get like I get my car back on the track, and it takes time, it doesn't just go from like zero to two hundred, it like it takes time to build up that that velocity. And and um, and here I see this white tail of a car coming behind me or in front of me, and I knew it was we only where there's only one car, white car on that on that set. So I'm like, fuck I that's Richie, and I fucking I fucking backlash I'm right in the fucking tail end, fucking crash his ass. Then as I'm seeing people in my rear view mirror, I'm purposely like driving into them so that they would crash. I crash at least, and then there was a time where I was on the fucking grass, like the infield grass, and I'm doing burnouts because I always loved when they did that when they win a race, and I'm just loving it. My whole fucking my whole fucking seat shaking, and Richie's like, Well, you're fucking laughing over there. Like I was having the time of my life. I must have smashed into 20 fucking people. I I finished third from last. I was four laps behind the leader, but the best one was Richie. He never even finished a fucking lap. He was seven laps behind. So in five minutes, he managed to be seven laps behind. I was four laps behind. So technically I beat him, but in my book, he was the winner because he finished dead last. And but I had so many accidents. Oh, I was so happy. It was I was so fucking happy. It was the one of the greatest moments. So if I ever go down to Charlotte, I am 1,000% going back to the Hall of Fame there. And that marks three off for me. I've been to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the NASCAR. I really want to go bad to the football and I want to go to the boxing. I don't really care for the NBA. I like the Lakers, but I'm I'm I'm not a big enough fan for NBA to like go out of my way for it. It'd have to be like this NASCAR thing. Like I just happen to be there and it's there, I'd go into it. Awesome. Five stars. Great time, great time. Then we went to eat, and that was the best fucking food I've ever had, probably. It was so good. And then we still had a couple hours, we couldn't park until like 4:30. So Richie, being Richie and the nice person that he is, because I've that's all I ever do is talk about how nice Richie is, um, said there's a comic book shop, or I think I did, I think. And oh yeah, so there was a comic book shop down the street, so he went there, and then it was like upstairs. It was like it's so weird. It was a business, so there was like five businesses on the front first floor, second on the second floor, but you had to go up like fucking 30 steps to get to it, and then it was fucking like out of business, or just didn't even exist. And then Richie found another one, and that one was awesome. So if Empire Graph Comics is listening right now, I never buy anything from anybody, but when I went in there, they had like every variant you could possibly. They had like those one of 25, one of tens. I even saw one of a hundred. Granted, if the price changes with that, but they had them. Like, I was like, oh my god, this is so fucking awesome. Everything. The fucking the guys were cool. Richie's like in the corner voxing this because he's laughing at he's highbrow. He's Mr. Highbrow. Mr. I brought 82 fucking diet diet Dr. Peppers on my road trip, and he's gonna laugh at me because I like comics, whatever. So loved it, had a great time, and then we went to a record store, and they had a bunch of used records, and I bought a cannibal corpse, and I bought a Dead Boys live album, which is a punk band. And Cannibal Corpse is death metal, they're from Easter Aura originally. And I actually like that. I played it twice already. I like it. I don't know if my granddaughter's gonna like it, but I liked it. Um and then we went to the concert. So now that's I mean, my god, I'm already at an hour. Alright, I'm sorry guys, this is gonna be a long one. I got I have at least another hour, another, at least another half hour left. Fuck me. Alright, you know what? I'm gonna break this up, and then I'm gonna do a second one, but I'm gonna do a second one right now. So you guys are gonna get a three for today. I'm gonna do this one, and then I'm gonna do the second part of this, and then I'm gonna do the Noblet Chinowski family rankings. So see you guys in a minute. I am gonna close this out and post it right now.