This Way Network: Michael Gavlak & Joel Fieri
Michael:
I’m coming.
Joel:
Are you there? Welcome to the chat session. I’m your host, Joel Fieri, apparently. My guest is… lead singer of the band…
Michael:
Sorry about that. You were stranded by yourself for the first.
Joel:
Did you see me though? Did you hear me? I picked up right, just like that. Apparently I’m a broadcast professional. I can do this.
Michael:
Oh, sorry about that.
Joel:
That’s all right.
Michael:
Well let me tell you why I had to step away real quick. There were some windows open and noise that could interfere.
Joel:
Yep.
Michael:
I’m not even thinking about that noise interfering with this. I was actually thinking of my speaking here, interfering with what’s going on outside. They’re filming a TV series. Our town is pretty much a back lot of the industry.
Joel:
It’s out pass, right? Oops. Sorry.
Michael:
Edit that out.
Joel:
On these things.
Michael:
Sorry. Yeah.
Joel:
Underground undisclosed bunker somewhere. Sorry.
Michael:
All right. Editor or producer, make sure when this is posted, that’s trimmed out.
Joel:
Make it sound like I said I cursed or something.
Michael:
I’m a secret agent where I am. Right. You can talk about where you live, no problem, but I’ve got to kind of maintain a cover, because I really do feel like I’m infiltrating the industry. I’m an insider inside of one of the big corporations that create content, but I’m also creating my own stuff. So it’s this precarious tight rope that I’m walking, but right next door, they were shooting. I could drop a name right now, an A-lister that most people would know. I walked by her in the vehicle that they’re filming her, pulling up. The house next door is the neighbor’s house in her new series, or not the neighbor’s house, her best friend’s house. So she comes to visit her best friend. Whenever they write into the script. Some guy’s sitting in a room with a computer saying, let’s go have her, the location.
Michael:
They write EXT or INT. I don’t know if you’ve seen screenwriting at all? You write EXT or INT. If it’s INT, you have to write the house or the building or wherever they’re at. Anytime a screenwriter’s saying she’s going to go to her best friend’s house, a whole bunch of money gets spent, and I’m making a little bit of money, because they got a generator on my driveway, but they were filming right out. I could point and I could have looked at the director and see the camera rolling and the actress walking into her friend’s house. It’s right next door. I’m talking on a microphone right now and they have super sensitive microphones. What if their microphone is aimed right toward my window?
Joel:
Right.
Michael:
The things that I’m saying end up getting, wait, what? I’m hearing voices. What is that? I had to run and close the window. Sorry. What did you say?
Joel:
What? Oh, I just introduced the chat session with your host, Joel Fury and my guest is lead singer of the rock band Gadillac.
Michael:
Oh man. You’re disclosing all kinds of stuff, but that’s good, actually. I don’t mind that.
Joel:
Yeah. Well yeah. Don’t leave me with an open mic.
Michael:
Yeah. Right? Shoot.
Joel:
I’ll tell everybody’s cover.
Michael:
That actually I’m kind of… That’s actually something that it’s like, when do I start crossing over and pointing people to other stuff that I do? That’s part of this process where I have so much content that I have made and that I plan to make. You’re the same way. You have a bunch of stuff. I want to talk about some of the stuff that you are focused on. What are you most focused on, besides your business? You have a business you run, you have a website that is yours. Then what? What is Joel Fury doing? It could be associated with one of those things. Tell me when you’re not just doing business creatively, what are you interested in?
Joel:
Oh, creatively? You know, it’s funny. I always talk about how, around here, I’m the only one that’s not a creative. It’s not like I don’t have a creative bone in my body. I do. I work with producers and artistic types and the talent, that’s the wild card is the talent around here. Are they going to show up? Are they going to do this? Or is somebody’s feelings going to get hurt? We have one client who has a particularly producer. He comes here all the time and he has a particularly difficult client. One day he just came out of the studio and he was just like, all I said was move a foot to the right. I didn’t say he was a bad person, but he melted. It’s that kind of thing. People with a great art artistic sense and great-
Michael:
Very sensitive to others’ input.
Joel:
Very sensitive to other things. I’m the one that keeps the lights on and keeps everything, the bills paid and stuff. Yeah, actually, the most creative thing I do I guess, would be cooking. I’m really into cooking and during the lockdowns and all the, I don’t say COVID or I don’t say pan, I say the lockdowns, or…
Michael:
Yep.
Joel:
If I’m really salty, I say the stupidity or whatever.
Michael:
Careful.
Joel:
Yeah, that’s kind of-
Michael:
You’re in a friendly place. I’m just saying careful.
Joel:
Yeah. I know. Like I said, this could go off any minute. Give me a microphone. That’s the kind of thing. One of the things that developed within that time of spending a lot of time at home.
Michael:
Is it, you look at recipes or you have things that you already know and you just want to expand?
Joel:
Yeah. I had cooked for about 20 years or so. Not because I particularly… I think most chefs would tell you or most cooks or most people who cook, it’s not that you really enjoy cooking that much. It’s that you really enjoy eating. I really enjoy eating. That’s one. I will have my dinner.
Michael:
You’re guided by the taste bud. Right?
Joel:
Oh yeah.
Michael:
I want to taste something delicious and I can make it more and more delicious. Oh.
Joel:
Yeah.
Michael:
Yeah. That’s a skillset I do not have. I was blessed. I did not know until I was already engaged to the woman I married that she not only loves to cook, but she has that thing that you’re talking about that it’s like, she just has this sensor. She makes me taste stuff all the time, but she’s just able to… It’s chemistry and I don’t know.
Joel:
Yeah, it is. It’s fun to put something together to mix some grease and I don’t stick… I have a basic idea of the recipe, but I’ll change it every time. I’ll throw a little more of this, a little more of that. Sometimes doesn’t come out very good. But sometimes it comes out really good.
Michael:
Well, mom has a question.
Joel:
What’s that?
Michael:
What’s Joel’s favorite recipe?
Joel:
Oh, what’s my favorite recipe? Oh yeah. Hi mom. Well, my favorite recipe is chicken Marcella. I picked it up on the internet and I perfected it.
Michael:
Is that Curry? What is that?
Joel:
No, it’s Marcella wine. It’s like Sherry, it’s an Italian cooking wine. So you do your chicken, you pound it out real thin.
Michael:
I was thinking of Tiki Masala, but you’re saying Marcella. It’s different.
Joel:
Marcella. Yeah. Chicken Marcella.
Michael:
Yes.
Joel:
Yeah. So it’s got chicken and you throw mushrooms and the Marcella wine and you make the sauce with some butter and little farmers
Michael:
You just stop. Stop. No, just kidding. Keep going. You know what? The Pavlovian. I’m having a Pavlovian reaction literally.
Joel:
Yeah. That’s probably my favorite or Bolognese. I mean, my last name is Fieri.
Michael:
Bolognese story. That’s meat sauce.
Joel:
Yeah. Bolognese meat sauce. I like that. Yeah. Pretty much. I’ll try anything.
Michael:
That’s right. I forgot. Last time we talked, we found out you’re the mob, like genetically. You’re you’re one of the…
Joel:
My book will soon come out. Grandson Of The Mob.
Michael:
Are you a made man? I should be careful. Right?
Joel:
I made chicken Marcella last night. Does that count?
Michael:
Nice. Well, okay. So I’m grateful that you’re able to come on this show. Is there a subject matter that you haven’t had in mind before coming on, that you wanted to talk about? Anything in particular?
Joel:
Well, I was just listening to your Bible In The Morning there. When Paul was going through Romans 11, when he was talking about the remnant and boy, that’s not applicable for today. I don’t know what is. I was just talking about how there’s always a remnant. God always has room. God always has a certain group of people who will not bow the need to bail. I think that’s what we’re seeing right now is a kind of a… With the Bible talks about it falling away or in later days, there will be a falling away from the faith, but there will always be a faithful remnant to God who doesn’t bow the knee. I just think through most of what I do with the network, most of my podcasts, my theme is not… I know you talk a lot of politics and you’ve asked me before, talk about politics.
Joel:
I don’t necessarily talk about pure politics. I don’t have much to say about what Biden’s doing or Trump or whatever, but I will have a lot to say about how the church reacts to that. How Christians react to that and how we are called to be, I was just thinking about this on the way over. Excuse me. I was listening to a couple things yesterday when I talked about some of the things that are happened within the church and how, instead of us being salt and lied to the world, a lot of us are allowing the world to become salt. I wouldn’t say light, but to salt.
Michael:
Dimness.
Joel:
Yeah. Right.
Michael:
Ever, ever dimming.
Joel:
If that’s a word. Yeah.
Michael:
Yeah.
Joel:
That’s what mostly, what I tend to talk about is okay, we would love, I think as most Christians would love, to just ignore politics and keep ourselves unstained by the world and above our cultural things. Like I said, if we could, we’d love to, but we can’t. The more you look at churches, the more churches that buy into the progressive worldview or the was becoming now clearly a socialist Marxist kind of worldview, it’s coming into the church more and more. They’re trying to-
Michael:
I have to say something I have to, I have to interject here. You were not privy to. So right before I do the first show, this is the second of two shows I do every morning, Monday through Friday, Bible every morning,8:00 to 8:30 Pacific time and then 8:30 to 9:00, this, but I meet with my team briefly ahead of time. We talk about all kinds of stuff, but it’s network related and show related and task related. One of the members of the team that was in the meeting said, Hey, I got this guy that I want to bring on to one of the shows that we do, because there’s so many shows. It’s not just the chat session. There’s all these other shows that we do. You’re welcome to be a guest.
Michael:
I mean, I offer like I should spread the word if you want to be a guest on these other shows, because there’s other audiences. He mentioned exactly what you’re talking about. He says, I have a guy that I want to bring on that will talk about this subject, about how CRT is worked its way into the church, et cetera. You bringing this up, it was meant to be talked about today, for sure.
Joel:
Yeah. No, I think it’s probably the biggest challenge facing the church right now. I had a conversation.
Michael:
It’s not something that will go away if we don’t deal with it.
Joel:
No.
Michael:
By its nature.
Joel:
Yeah, because if you’re on the conservative side of things, you want to push back, you want to resist that kind of thing, but you’re under pressure to not make politics a big deal. Well, we shouldn’t talk about, but on the progressive side, they don’t have those conversations. They don’t stop and think, well maybe I’m pushing politics too hard.
Michael:
Well, you hit on it.
Joel:
Push and push.
Michael:
Compromise. You hit right on it. The word you said, they don’t stop and think, thinking. They don’t think. They’re told what to do. They’re in lockstep. There’s no thinking involved.
Joel:
Yeah. Why would they? They have no-
Michael:
It’s the theory that you must adhere to. You must adhere to it. There’s no debating. What are you talking about? Your apostasy, if you disagree with the… That’s why it’s a religion. Right?
Joel:
I don’t think they even, they don’t even think of it as well, I’m injecting my politics into the church. They’re just, no, this is the way it is. Eventually, like I said, I was going to say, well, I had a conversation in a small group of mine a couple weeks ago where they were talking about some things happening in China and this very prominent member of the church said, well, he goes, no, I don’t necessarily think communism is evil, but you know this… A lot of us kind of started pushing back on him. Some were like, well, we shouldn’t argue. I just said, listen. I said, if this conversation were about Nazis, instead of communists, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. It’s crazy. If you said, I don’t think Nazi… You’d be out here. All of us would be united to get it, but for some reason, communist, we kind of like, well…
Michael:
Control of the language, right?
Joel:
Yeah.
Michael:
Even the word, it’s in interesting how word, social network, has been kind of commandeered. The word social has been commandeered. So that now that only like most people hear the word social and they think it’s a positive thing. Social media, social networking, socialism. It’s like what? No,. The people are not being educated with these words actually mean and the truth is obfuscated. Yeah. So they’re on our side, because we have that word. That sound, social. It’s a good thing. Commune, community, right? Community. It’s deadly ideologies disguised as angels of light, if you will.
Joel:
Yeah. I did a podcast a couple weeks ago when I talked about modifiers, adjectives. God is a God of justice and the Bible calls for us to do justice.
Michael:
He has all these different names like these different modifiers of who he is.
Joel:
Right. Anytime you see a modifier in front of the word, justice, run and hide. You have a social justice. If it’s racial justice, it become-
Michael:
Even truth. Even if you have a modifier to the word truth, it’s no longer truth. It’s my truth. It’s something very different.
Joel:
Yeah, anyway, so that’s, again, you could go on and on with just the philosophy of it, but the challenge is going to be, how do we respond? The pastor of my church, when the Ukraine war started, he made a very bold pronouncement from the pulpit. He said, I want to tell you that communism is evil. Communism-
Michael:
What a relief to hear that.
Joel:
Oh yeah, you can see a sign from that. Then I said, it’s easy to say when you’re talking about Ukraine or Russia or you’re talking about halfway around the world, it’s easy to say that’s evil over there and confront a guy like Putin, who’s obviously, former KGB agent, he’s a ruthless guy. Easy to call him evil and be right. How do you, if communism is evil, halfway around the world, what is it when it’s in your church? What is it when one of your congregation or many of your congregation are pushing your church that way or pushing your church? Yeah. That ideology. What do you do? What do we do? There are a lot of people in that meeting that would like, let’s not talk about this. I’m like, it’s not going to go away.
Joel:
If we, if we embrace it or if we ignore it, if we ignore it, we’ll end up embracing it. If we embrace it, we’ll end up losing the gospel really, is what it is.
Michael:
Well, that kind of, I’m going to transition. That’s a perfect transition to what this network is about. It’s about informing people. It’s about getting that truth accessible to as many Christians, as many just Patriots, as many humans as possible, the actual truth. Bringing somebody on that, we’re going to have somebody on and maybe that’ll turn into a regular thing where we check in on… We need to make sure the church is informed and educated and Christians know how to have access, because there’s so many voices out there and we’re just trying to create a place.
Michael:
I want to do, like you referenced today’s Bible Every Morning with, you were inspired or tied into this. As you’re talking, that remnant, when I look at Jesus in the temple, which I didn’t get to all of it, he goes into the temple and he starts stopping people from carrying things. He’s stopping them from carrying things. In other words, he goes to this temple and goes, this is my house. It’s not like I’m just visiting this place where this religious group thinks they know what’s going on. He goes, this is, I am the temple. This is the physical structure. That is a metaphor for me. He’s seeing it very differently than everyone. He sees people just walking through there and making money off of this holy place. It’s basically a… They have a corner on the market.
Michael:
They have a monopoly. Everybody has to come here. Everybody has to, the law says you have to come and bring and sacrifice things, which means you’re feeding the priesthood. All the money you put in the coffers are going in somebody’s pocket. It’s the law. Jesus is like… The authority. He was a minority. He was one guy all by himself, man, this crowd of people following him around. You’re talking about that remnant. There is still that remnant today. It’s him, people that are closest to him. I’d like to thank people that understand scripture and have a personal commitment to talking to Jesus and listening to his word every day. It’s a promise. You will not, I mean, some will be sacrificed and some will pay the price, but the truth is not worth compromising.
Michael:
Once you get ahold of that, you realize you are a part of a very small, you know you’re a part of a very small group and your whole objective is to educate the rest of the group. The remnant. God’s chosen need to understand truth. I mean, that’s really the reason I’ve started this whole network and the Bible Every Morning being it’s kind of the cornerstone or, I think, that’s a good start with the word of God.
Joel:
No, that’s great. Yeah. God’s word doesn’t return void.
Michael:
Ooh, that’s it. That should be the… Right there. That’s my slogan for Bible Every Morning. Did you get that producer? Whoever’s producing this show. Make sure God’s word doesn’t return void. Is that chapter in verse or is it, where is the verse? Where is that? We got to find it.
Joel:
Oh, put me on the spot. I don’t know.
Michael:
It’s not important. We can find it. Thank God computers, algorithms, you type in the phrase and it’ll tell you exactly where it is immediately, but that’s a good one for Bible Every Morning, for the marketing. We’re actually developing marketing right now. So aside from cooking and the rise of bad ideas in the church, what else are you occupying yourself with?
Joel:
Oh, honestly I’m 62 years old and my warranty is out. I’ve had a lot of health problems lately. So I’m learning all about the healthcare system too and mostly… So yeah, I’ve had some physical challenges lately just recovering from a shoulder surgery that didn’t go right. That’s taken a lot of my time. Yeah. Actually it’s funny, you should mention that. My wife and I love to travel too. It’s been such a challenge the last couple years, but we have, we didn’t necessarily buy into all the panic and everything. We did do some traveling and we’d like to do some more.
Michael:
Where’d you go?
Joel:
Oh, we went up to, well, it’s funny. We went up to Washington State with the Olympic peninsula and it’s funny, we’ve gone up there a couple times and we went up to the San Juan islands a couple years ago in, I believe it was August, July. I don’t know if you’ve been to Seattle area in the summertime, but it’s the most beautiful place.
Michael:
It’s gorgeous. I’ve been up there.
Joel:
Yeah. I lived in San Diego for years. I thought San Diego was the most beautiful city. Seattle, when the sun is shining, Seattle just knocks you out. We’re staying at the San Juan islands. Of course my wife’s like, I want to buy a… I want to live here. I’m like, I’ve lived here. You don’t. I said, because in a couple months, that round orb in the sky will go away and you won’t see it.
Michael:
For a long time.
Joel:
For nine months. Then last year we went up there again, to the Olympic peninsula, and we went a week too late and we got rained on and it did not stop. I said, see, this is…
Michael:
You want to live in this?
Joel:
Yes. That little two months we could summer up here, I guess. They were more, with masks and everything. They were even more radical than they are here in California. So, but yeah. We’ve been to, we went to Arizona a little bit. Yeah. Back at the Midwest, visit family.
Michael:
I rediscovered traveling this past summer. I mean, I did some traveling last couple of summers overseas, to Europe, but for research. I mean, I enjoyed every second of it and had some epiphanies about human existence on this gorgeous green ball, flying over all these incredible places that some are populated, some are not, but it’s all gorgeous. This last summer I did a road trip. I visited, I think, 19 states in three weeks. Then in October I did about nine days and did about 12 states and recorded. I’m creating a show called Love America. It’s just a travel show. We’re avoiding religion. We’re avoiding politics and we’re just discovering America and how much do you love America? You’ll love it more after you watch this show. That’s for sure.
Michael:
That’s kind of the marketing and pitch. That’s one thing we’re working on, on the network. Aside from Bible Every Morning, I’m going to be focusing on Hollywood And History is one of the shows here on the network. We’re going to be upgrading that. So we have really good interviews with really intelligent and significant people. We need to produce out the show to look more like kind of a documentary style. That’s stuff that we’re working on.
Joel:
Sure.
Michael:
Traveling is… It’s like discovering God’s creation. It’s literally a worshipful act, I think. Right. Just traveling and looking at God’s creation and interacting with God’s the diversity. When you were talking about Seattle and how it rains, I was just thinking about environmentalism and I don’t want to go there very far. There’s certain things you can’t say, but it rains there all the time. Then people think of drought and stuff. It’s like, it’s seasonal. There’s stuff that happens. It’s seasonal and people are terrified that we’re destroying the planet. I just don’t think we are.
Joel:
Yeah. I’m a skeptic.
Michael:
Yeah.
Joel:
On that, skeptical, I guess.
Michael:
Dangerous ideas. Right? Can we even talk about it?
Joel:
Now skepticism is dangerous, apparently.
Michael:
Well, it gets back to that. There’s an approved narrative. If you’re not just spouting back talking pounds. Have you seen those videos where somebody will record newscasts from all different local affiliates across the country? They literally put them side by side and they’re literally saying the same script.
Joel:
Yeah.
Michael:
The latest news, like somebody is in control of the narrative all across the country. They’re all, literally, it’s words on a screen and I’ve been hired to be pretty and say them. That’s all. These people don’t believe what they’re saying. They’re just reading words off a screen in. Yeah. They’re supposed to be credible. This is the face that tells you truth. Don’t deviate and make sure in your social conversations, these are the things you are agreeing upon, not debating or discussing.
Joel:
Right. As believers, we know the truth. Truth should… There’s this tension too, always between truth and love, which I think we manufacture. I don’t think there is a tension between them. We speak the truth in love. You’re talking about that’s the modifier that speak the truth with the modifier. Truth is what sets us free. Truth is what we are supposed to teach.
Michael:
And believe.
Joel:
And believe. Right. Love is by telling the truth, we are loving. The two aren’t in contradiction, but too often, like I said, the world has convinced us that if we do speak the truth, we’re unloving. Again, that’s where the salt has gone the long way.
Michael:
Yeah, it’s the reverse, right? It’s upside down world. It’s calling good, evil and evil, good, et cetera. All of those expressions.
Joel:
What’s coming out now, the things that are coming out now, it should be very easy for us to speak truth to. I think I heard someone say the other day, oh geez, all those crazy evangelicals. All those people back in the 80’s that I thought were crazy, all those slippery soap arguments have come true. I’m like, that’s exactly right.
Michael:
Pay attention to history.
Joel:
Yeah. Pay attention. Nobody has that memory. It’s very obvious. It should be very obvious what’s happening in the world, in our culture is evil. It’s a lie. Yet, you’re talking about what your goals for your network are. The same goals for my network are to have truth there. It’s sad that we need to do that, because evangelical leaders, just by and large, you said what a relief, one of my pastors said, and evil. You’re right. Not a lot of Christian leaders will do that now.
Michael:
Well, let me share with you and with any of the audience here, that’s not on the inside of the network. The team, we had a meeting on Tuesday. Let me just share with you kind of what we’re gearing up for. I’m going to be… We’re going to be focusing on a campaign to have a story available for people this Christmas, and we’re going to reach out to churches. It’s a very important story that Christians don’t know. So we are targeting Christians, number one, and Patriots and humans in general, but there’s this huge market, is one way to term it. There’s this huge group of people that are completely ignorant of what’s going on in the world. If you target them with a really good story, they’ll be entertained and educated and transformed in the process. That’s the goal of This Way Network and what we’re doing here. Joel, good seeing you. I think I’m going to see you every other week. Something like that, right?
Joel:
Yeah. Sounds like it