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A while back, I was in Fresno. I was in an elevator just as the doors were closing. At the last second, I saw this guy sprinting across the lobby trying to make it in before the doors closed, so I politely tapped the door, causing it to open again so he could get in the elevator with me. As he boarded, he looked at me with a surprised expression and said, “Thank you. Cheers, mate!” in his Australian accent.
Now, if he were from Toledo, I wouldn’t have a second thought about this moment. But, since he was from another country, I kinda felt like a hero!
I did it.
I stopped the elevator. He would have had to wait for the next one in the cold, lonely lobby if it weren’t for my heroic efforts. Instead, he stood here with me, safe and sound in the upwardly rising elevator.
Welcome to America, my friend!
I’m only a bit embarrassed to admit that my imagination was soaring at that moment. I envisioned the city of Fresno giving me the Key to the City; I pictured my face on the cover of Time Magazine; I dreamt of the movie Hollywood would produce based on my moment of heroism.
I’m also a heroic neighbor.
Recently, we sadly had to say goodbye to one of the families in our neighborhood. They were moving from Minnesota to Buffalo, NY. We helped them pack and saw them off with a smile and tear in our eye. As they were about to drive away, he said to me, “If you’re ever in Buffalo, please come and see us.”
Strange as it may seem, three days later I was performing in Buffalo. So now, I had a bit of a dilemma. It had only been three days. I was thinking that if friends move away, you should actually give them a bit of time in order to miss you before you pop in.
It just didn’t seem right to see how they’re enjoying their new neighborhood before their furniture is even in place.
Next, my buddy Matt Falk joins the show to let off a little steam.
Matt is getting more and more frustrated with his generation and their addiction to technology. It’s causing people to become paranoid. For example, if any twenty-something starts feeling the slightest bit ill, they type in their symptoms into their smartphone and Google spits out the disease they are apparently suffering from. Then, in order to feel unique and special, they latch on to these strange and exotic diseases.
Matt had one friend claim that she was stricken with “acute muscular pterinophony” – a condition that caused her shoulder to hurt every time she wildly flailed her arms around like an inflatable air dancer.
Why didn’t she just stop doing that?!?!
And Google isn’t helping the situation. It’s actually blowing everything out of proportion. Matt recently typed in, “I’m having trouble sleeping at night”. Google replied: “you have gout”.
WHAT?
“Yes,” said Google, “and you have scurvy, too.”
And this same technology has brought out the worst in people, too. Consider the comments on any YouTube video. It could be the most benign videos, like a cat riding a skateboard, yet the comments eventually turn into a scathing religious tirade. Oh, they start out nice:
“What a cute cat.”
“Adorable.”
“I think I had that skateboard.”
“THERE IS NO GOD!”
As Matt puts it, first of all, this isn’t the time nor place for his. Secondly, of course there’s a God, you dope! We’re looking at a cat riding a skateboard, for crying out loud! In what Godless world could this ever occur??
Finally, comedy legend Sonny Shroyer joins the show. Sonny co-starred in the original TV Classic, The Dukes of Hazzard as Deputy Enos Strate. Sonny is 80-years-old now, and he just shot a new television pilot! He plays a Southern U.S. Senator in the show “Running”. To prepare, Sonny watched all three hours of the first GOP debate with all seventeen candidates!
Sonny looks great for his age, and he always has. In fact, when he was doing Dukes of Hazzard, he looked like he was 17, but he was actually 40-years-old at the time!
Sonny also appeared in the movie Forrest Gump alongside Tom Hanks, where he played Forrest’s college football coach.
One thing Sonny and I have in common is that we have both performed voice work for video games – me on NBA Escape (available on your iPhone and Android devices) and Sonny on Return of the General Lee video game for PlayStation and Xbox. I can say from first-hand account, he is much better at voice-acting, and any other type of acting than I’ll ever be!