This episode was expected to be a test drive with my wife, Sue -- an opportunity to roll up my sleeves and play with the recording and editing software. Of course, it has all the expected mistakes of a first show. But because Sue offers the unique perspective of not being considered a member of the handicapped or disabled community and instead being married to a handicapped individual, I'm going to keep this episode posted as part of the Life's a Road Trip series. I look forward to where this podcast goes and hope you ride along with me!
Transcription:
Okay, so we're recording,
but I'm not gonna mess with it cuz Iwent to the other and I'm gonna hit start
stop. We're gonna go, we'll see if, oh,
we'll just see how many minuteswe get out of this. Okay. Okay.
Being categorized as disabled or handicapcan feel like you're moving forward in
reverse. I'm your host, Scott Martin.
Join me as they talk with my new friendsfrom this underrepresented community
about their views of life throughtheir art, poetry, sport, and writing.
Hey, life's a road trip. Hop in.Let's turn on some tunes and go.
Hi. We're with our first guestof the all time, Sue Martin,
who happens to be my wife. Uh,
she is probably the musicaficionado that, uh,
most prolific knowledgeperson of music from the
1980s that I've ever met in my life.. So I wanna touch on this. Um,
so yeah, what you're doing right now,
I want you to just be ascasual as possible. Okay?And we're not gonna be naked.
And he starts and stop. So if George,our dog starts barking or something,
just let it happen. Um, so I'm inthe basement, Sue's upstairs. So,
um,
let me just get started with CaseyKasem comes on Saturday mornings on
1 0 7 0.9, and we listento it on Tune in radio,
and we always start with me keepingmy mouth shut. I'm wondering,
waiting for you to say,oh, it's 1981. I know this,
and you're never more than one yearoff, and it just blows me away.
So I want to hear your aspect and wecan just chit chat about music from
the eighties. So I pulled upBillboard's Top 10 from every year,
starting in 1980. Oh. And yeah.So we're gonna go from there.
And let me, let me throw you this one out.
Guess who or what song this wouldblow me away if you got this,
the number one song from 1980,according to Billboard Top 10.
What was the group? I'll give.
You that. I'm supposed to just guess.
just guessing. Yeah,I see if you can guess it.
I thought you would give me ahint or a little clip, right? Let.
This song, let me think. Okay. .
Um, what the number onesong was? Uh, for 80 19 80.
We'll see how many you can come up with.
Is it Air Supply?
Air supply is not it. They'renot even in the top 10. Goodness.
So am I, I can't stand here.
I'm so sorry if I offended you.
, but just,
I'm looking at this top 10 and it'sall over the place. You and I talk,
talk about this all the time.How crazy that, that decade was.
You're gonna ec I'm gonna give you.
Eclectic. Crazy. He won Runningout. Okay. Yep. Okay. All.
Right. So how about,
just throw me any bandsfrom 80 that you think
might be in the top 10. This isnine. So put your 1980 thinking tail.
Probably a bright.
Color. Well, cowboy Boy was,I think a big, like, um,
soundtrack with songs that year. Um,
yellow Xanadu was,
I think a big movie soundtrack year.
Oh, so you're getting into,you're saying that in 1980s,
especially early eighties,
a lot of movie soundtracksmade up the top tens.
Um, I don't, I know it.
The mid eighties it wasvery big. Beverly Hills cop,
um, uh, white Knights. Uh, the one with,
um, Jeffrey. Oh, he's out there working.
Dahmer? No. Is itJeffrey? He is that? Yeah.
Nikau Nikko, yeah. Point Knights,you know, stuff like that.
Well, here was the top song of1980. It was by Blonding. Oh,
call.
Me. I I was just gonna say, callme. Well, that was from American.
Gigolo . I here this,this one might blow you away.
Another brick in the wall part toofrom Pink Floyd was number two.
Okay.
See, so talk about eclectic. I'll go downthe list. This is just 1980. It just,
this is just touching on things. OliviaNewton John with magic was number three.
That's from Santa Do. Okay.
Xanadu. See, there you go.
The neighbors are outsideand he's having a royal fit.
Oh, fat he.
Outside Jack and Joan. Oh yeah. Socan I put you down for a minute?
Sure. Okay.
This is how we're probablygonna be running, uh,
shows in case we want this to be totallyunscripted because it's gonna be more
appealing to people. Right?Okay. So, hi George. How.
Are you? No, he's not in. I dunno ifthey were really out or what, but he.
He just going crazy.
So I'm just opening his vein.
treats to coax him.
And this is what we end uphaving to do so many times. Um,
it's dark outside right now.We're in, we're in the evening,
so he might not see it.
Oh. Oh, he's ponying up.Come on George. Come on.
It's cool. Crazy. Okay, we're in.
So, I'm impressed with this becauseI'm in the, in our basement.
Our house is built in 1957 and you,
this basement is all 1957 with a dry barand everything where professors used to
live and we've, we'vealways talked about, my God,
some of the parties they must have hadhere with college professors living all
around the neighborhood,probably coming down here and,
and listening to music fromearly sixties, you know,
all through the sixties. MyGod, some of the things that,
or the smoke that might actually be havebeen inhaled in here during the late
sixties. , thank goodness we movedin and there wasn't any, uh, smell of,
uh, cigarette smoke, but pot.
I wouldn't be surprised if therewere some of that, uh, in, uh,
indulge in in the late sixties,early seventies. Okay, so, uh,
Michael Jackson was topwas four. Here's one.
What are your faves Captain and10. Neil Number five. Do you, uh,
do that little thing.
That to me One more time?
Do that to me one moretime. Yes. Wow. Uh, queen.
Another one. Um, no, not another oneBites the dust. Um, don't tell me. Um,
okay. Fat Bottom Girls.
Nope.
Oh, don't tell me. Um, another oneBites the, no, it's not another one.
Bites the dust. Nope. Uhuh. Radio Gaga, .
Nope. Uh, something about a bicycle. Okay.
This is off, off that crazylittle thing called Love. Oh.
And then McCartney with coming up,uh, funky Town with Lips. Lips Inc.
That was a one hit wonder, right? Yes.Yeah. Lips Ink. Billy Joel was still hot.
So, uh, it's still rock and rollto me. Okay. And then number 10,
here you go back with yourmovie theme Bet Midler. Oh.
The rolls from the rows. Yes.
Yes. Okay. So scrolling down thelist a little bit. Um, you know,
I just wanna find out, because you hadmentioned it. How eclectic is this is?
So, 1981 had leading offwith, uh, Kim Kanes. Oh.
Betty Davis. I song.
Very good. Then DianaRoss and Lionel Richie.
Endless Love.
Yep. Kenny Rogers.
Just Kenny Rogers.
Jess Kenny Rogers Lady. Yes.
That was written by JohnLennon, Lionel Richie.
Oh, that's right. Yeah. They did asong together once they did, I believe.
Mm-hmm. . Yes. Idon't, I'm asking the wrong person.
I'm gonna seem stupid. Um, John Lennon.
Um, just like starting over or woman.
Yes. You're rolling. RickSpringfield. You're man.
Uh, don't talk tostrangers. Jessie's girl.
Nope. Jessie's girl. Verygood. Cool. In the Gang.
Ladies night? Nope. Celebration.
Probably the same. El Yes.Celebration. Uh, hollowing Outs.
Man, eater.
Tough because now it'sprobably off that same album.
Private Eyes?
No, off the same album. Oh.
Uh.
Kiss on My List. Okay. Andthen Eddie Rabbit again.
I.
Love Rain Night. I lovea rainy night. Very good.
And then going back tomovie themes with Dolly.
Parton. Uh, nine to five.
Yep. And AO Speedwagon. One of your faves.
You're not one of my faves.
I know. Keep part Loving You. Which iswhat I do. I just keep on living you.
Back.
So let's skip a little bit. Let's, um,gimme a year that you want to explore.
This will be our last one we explore.
Um, 1987.
Okay. 87. You want to, how do you wannado this? Let me throw out the band.
Okay. Or the song.
Whatever you would like.
I'll throw out the band.Number one, the Bangles.
Uh, walk Like an Egyptian.
Very good. It always makes me thinkof Steve Martin on Saturday night.
Oh, okay. Yep. He had athing for King Top. Yes.
Heart. That's a tough.
One. That is be, I.
Have no clue what this song he.
Were kind of researching then. Um-huh.
It's a one word song.
Never.
No. Alone. No. I have noclue what that song is.
And legally we can'tpull that up and play.
It. You would if you heardit, it you would know it.
I'll bet I would. Yeah.Now, Gregory Abbott.
Oh, shake you down number.
Three. Yes. My wife's on a role. Okay,
now here's a broad one.Whitney Houston number four.
God, that's tough cuz she was very.
I know because she had.
So many very hot, um, Iwanna dance with somebody.
Yes. Uh, five of Starship.
We built this city. Otherone. Um, oh, it's from that,
um, mannequin. I cannotthink of the name of it.
Nothing's gonna.
Stop us now. Yes. Fromthe movie Mannequin. Okay.
Mm-hmm. . Um, Robbie Nevo.
Se Avi.
Yes. Uhoh. Ah, what, here we go.
The one that you love and I justkinda always look the other way.
Whenever you who's playing.
White name.
Pick. What song do youthink it is? Number seven for.
The year? Um, here I go again.
Yeah. Um, this is one ofmy all time favorite songs.
It always kind of tears me up wheneverhear Bruce horns me in the range.
That's just the way it is.
Yep. It always, as a socialstudies teacher, history teacher,
it always ticks me off.Excuse me. I can say this.
It pisses me off when I hearthe lyrics to that song.
Right about here we are how manyyears later? 35 years later.
And that crap is still going on withwhat they were talking about in the song.
Here we go. And you and I saw it a fewtimes in Europe. Mm-hmm. .
Right. Especially in London. Um,
when we gave fries to that guythat was outside the hotel, God,
it still happens. Okay.Number nine, Bob Seger with.
The Silver Bullet Band. .
Yeah. The name of thesong. See if you can.
Get it. Uh, shakedown.
Yes. Very good. From Beverly Hills.And the last one, Uhhuh .
See another movie one, right? Yeah.
It was a Beverly Hills Copor Beverly Hills Cup too.
I think it's BeverlyHills Cup too. Okay. Okay.
Cause it was later. Yeah.Okay. Um, bringing up number10 was done by Bon Jovi.
Uh, you give love a bad name.
Nope. Same album.
Living on a Prayer.
Yep. There you go. So that wrapsup. See how smart my wife is?
She blows me away with this stuff.
We get on track on some of this stuffon Saturday mornings when we're hanging
out in bed if we're both off and itjust takes us a while to get outta bed.
All right. So, um, we've alreadydone the summarize the decade. Um,
gimme a little bit of informationon concerts that you attended back
then, or you can be aswild as you want. Uh,
or bands that you attendedsince the eighties
that were played known for theirmusic from the eighties. So.
Go ahead. Uh, well of course we wentto a couple white snake concerts.
.
Yeah. Figured out I left that one open.
White snake with great white opening.I believe that was at Alpine Valley.
Mm-hmm. . Okay. We went,uh, I think it was World Series of Rock,
which was at Alpine Valley and withWhite Snake there was multiple groups.
Um,
we went to Monsters of Rockin Minneapolis and I think
Van Haen was, um, the,the headliner. But there,
I think there was threeother groups as well,
like Dawkin and I can'teven tell you. Um, yeah,
that kind of was the eighties.
Went to see Stevie Nicks with mysister Peter Frampton opened at
Alpine Valley. That'sprobably the extent of it.
Okay. Being that the name ofthe show is, life's a Road Trip,
it's time to shift gearsof this conversation.
The drive of this podcast is to cruisewith handicap or disabled community.
You're not handicapped, but you dooffer a unique, a unique perspective.
Now we first met in our late teens,
then I went off to college and lifehappened and we just drifted apart.
At that time I was a soccer player andwe danced the nights away at the disco.
Back then you kinda saw me as ahunk as you tell me and stuff.
But four years later,
you found me on Facebook tofind that I was a now a quad amputee.
Now I have to ask you, babe,
what was it like to learnthat I had become handicapped?That I had wore braces,
uh, to walk after losing parts of myfeet and I had lost both of my hands?
Tell me about.
It. Um, to be honest,
I was nervous meeting youbecause I wasn't sure what
my reaction would beto the physical aspect
because I had grown to care so muchabout you with our interactions
with not actually seeing eachother Well sometimes, you know,
when we would video chat, but
I wasn't sure and I wasapprehensive. I'll, I'll admit it.
I.
Okay. Thank you for the candor.
Yeah. I don't know ifI've ever told you that.
No, we've never talked about it. Whichis really cool to help us. You know,
we may end up keeping thisepisode on there for, uh,
everybody to hear and not just use itas a test. But this is good for us too,
uh, as a couple to be able to talk about.
Cuz we'd never really gotteninto it all that much.
But it's kind of cool that we'redoing it here in a podcast.
Yeah.
So, all right. I mean,
I respect where you're coming from andthat leads me to the next question,
just in general or howeveryou want want to go about it.
What's it like to be married toa handicap or disabled person?
I, because it came later in my life,
um, I had to learn how to do things,
which in my previousmarriage I had somebody
that would pretty much take care of allthat. So now I'm learning how to do it.
Um, now you're talking about, youknow, when you and I get together,
so we first got together, we boughta lot of online furniture to,
to set up an apartment andyou're the one that had to
go about putting everything together.That's what you're talking about.
Right? Maybe I, yes I am. Um, okay.
And sometimes now whenwe do things together,
I think you get frustrated and Ialways take it as frustration on me,
but sometimes I, you will explain. No,
it's you not being able to do it, butyou'll tell. Right. Give me instructions.
Do it this way. And I'm always go theopposite way for whatever reason. .
See, there's a tendency with us is youdon't trust yourself as much because
while society teaches you asa female typically did, oh,
you're not supposed to be able to do that.
Plus you were married tosomeone that did all that stuff,
but he always treated you alittle differently than I do.
Absolutely.
Uh, and he just didn't trust you orhe didn't think that you were, anyway,
let's, let's not get into Yeah.That sort of stuff. So, okay.
All right. So again,it's good. And I think
that this sort of thing,because most of the,
the guess that we're gonna be having onthe show are all disabled or handicapped
or something. And, andto be speaking with, um,
a spouse like yourself, you know,of a person that's handicapped,
um, I think it's a unique perspective. So.
And in some ways I thinkwe all have a handicap.
Yours are just more visible.
Very profound, my dear.
Yeah.
Well,
let's pop into what I'm really lookingforward to doing with guests at the
end of each show, we're gonna dothe road trip checklist. Okay. Okay.
So thinking about some stuff, I'm justgonna throw you five different questions.
Just roll with whatever comes off topof your head. I don't care. Weird It is.
All right. So pretty simple. Okay.What's your go-to? What? All right.
So you and I are out going on a roadtrip and we looking for blue signs and we
always say, what are you hungry for?I don't know, what are you hungry?
You know, we always go through that.So what's your go-to fast food?
Say if I'm not in thecar, what's your go-to.
Fast food? Um, taco Bell comes to mind.
Yeah. And you always get a packetof, um, hot sauce for each egg.
Mild.
Sauce each Ed. Mild. Mild, yeah.Yep. Make sure it's mild. All right,
number two. What's your dreamcar for a road trip? I mean,
we've already got your convertiblebug. Mm-hmm. . Okay.
Sue drives a convertible Volkswagen.
So what's your dream carif it's not your bug?
So I can go a little high.
Anything, whatever you want.
Babe. Um, I would say aCadillac. Really? Yes.
Not one of those big bugs. Not.
A big boat, like thissporty seat that Okay.
Because they ride nice. Theyare quiet on the road. Okay. Um,
and I'm sure they haveimproved since I've had one,
although I did like my little, um, suvcuz you sit up a little higher. Yep.
Yeah. Well,
we'll see if we can get something underthe Christmas tree this year. Maybe not.
uh,
the last cassette or CD thatplayed while you were on a road.
Trip? Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits.
That's nice.
And that was probably when you're on yourway to Sandy's to visit for a weekend.
The first time I,
I Sandy's at cd I washeading to Milwaukee.
This was 2008, I believe, 2009,
2008 to fly to see myfriend Mary in Vegas.
So I flew down or drove down to Sandy'sin Dennis's and then they took me to the
airport and I just gotten thatCD I had donated to PBS on one
of their when they do that andgot that. Mm-hmm. .
Very.
Cool. And I still like it.I love it for road tripping.
Excellent. Okay. Numberfour is Coke or Pepsi.
That can be any of their products. Andthat didn't have to be Coke or Pepsi,
you know. Yeah. Sodas.
We have a lot of Cokehere. I'm gonna say Pepsi.
Wow. You're throwing me off. .Why is it that we, well you know,
when we, you and I go through and we,
we stop cuz we always get a mediumor large and then we always course.
Can I see Dr Is that a Coke.
Product? That's what I was justgonna say. No, I think it's a,
I think they're independent, aren'tthey? Because you and I always look for,
hey, they got Diet Dr. Pepper and sowhenever somebody has diet Dr. Pepper,
Arby's and then we saw it,
we were at Hardee's recentlyand we saw that they had it.
So we always do that because it'sso rare for us to get it. Um,
last one, what's yourfavorite road trip memory?
Uh, driving to Memphis tomarry the love of my life.
Oh. Oh, that was fun. Wasn.
That, that was very.
Fun. That was wild. Thatwas most enjoyable. That wewere looking for a hotel,
uh, like we were southern Illinois cuzwe had to cut it in half cuz we live in
central Wisconsin and driveall the way to Memphis.
We weren't gonna make it inone day, so we stopped, eh,
60% the way down somelittle hotel, I don't know,
ended up being in a good location,but it was at night. And uh,
the computer helped us.
On the way down.
On the way down. They.
Came in where Papa's hometownis or you know. That's.
Right.
I can't, I don't.
That's right. I forgotwhat the name. It was in.
Illinois. Yes it was.
But, okay. All right. Very cool.Thanks. Okay, that wraps up.
Test show, uh, number one. And hopefullythis is gonna be the only test show,
so I really appreciate it, babe. Andwould you do something for me if I can?
Um, do you think I have enough winefor dinner? Are we cooking tonight? No.
Um, no, we're doing thatsomething up. We're.
Doing meat. Well, whenI come up, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna move my wine fromthe fra freezer, so. All right.
Thanks everybody for listening.This is really going out.
This is gonna be posted on the websitefor our guests that we're gonna be
recording before I drop our first one,which I think is scheduled for Tuesday,
January 3rd. So any, uh,
guests that I interview before then aregonna be hearing this just as a test.
By the way, this went a little bitover 19 minutes. Were you comfortable?
I was very comfortable, honey.
I, I think you did well, Iappreciate it. Okay. So, um,
let me get outta here and Iappreciate it. Love you babe.
Love ya. Peace.
Thanks for listening. Check outprevious episodes with new ones,
dropping each Tuesday.
If you don't see a synopsis ofthis show where you're listening,
visit our website atlife's road trip dot pod
beam.com. For more informationon this week's guest,
this is your host, Scott Martin,reminding you that life's a road trip.